Beautiful music surrounded by magnificent paintings and played by a beautiful young pianist .

Thank you Mary Orr for arranging such a treat for Halloween.
In the sumptuous Matthiesen Gallery in Mayfair Varvara Tarasova started her programme with the shortest but most mellifluous Sonata by Schubert of pure innocent beauty.
Schumann’s monumental Carnaval filled this rarified atmosphere with a parade of mignons aided and abetted by Schumann’s duel characters of Florestan and Eusebius.
Scintillating charm and exquisite playing of two of Liszt’s most beguiling miniatures:.Liszt’s irresistible elaboration of Schubert with his Soirées de Vienne n.6 and one of his three concert studies ,La Leggerezza,completed this oasis of peace and beauty on La notte delle streghe (The witches sabbath)
Rain and confusion all around but reinforced by such beauty after only an hour we are ready to go into battle in the big city outside.

The Piano Sonata in A major D.664, op posth 120 was written in the summer of 1819.The manuscript, completed in July 1819, was dedicated to Josephine von Koller of Steyr in Upper Austria, whom he considered to be “very pretty” and “a good pianist”. The lyrical, buoyant, in spots typically poignant nature of this sonata fits the image of a young Schubert in love, living in a summery Austrian countryside, which he also considered to be “unimaginably lovely”.

Liszt was very fond of the Soirées and they featured in many of his performances in the mid-19th century. His Soirée No. 6 in A minor was based on themes from Schubert’s 12 Valses nobles, D.969, and Valses sentimentales, D.779, and was revised at least twice. The final revision, done in 1869, was said to be part of the last recital he gave in Luxembourg, in July 1886. The 1869 revision was made for his pupil, Sophie Menter, who, after the death of Liszt was ‘regarded by some as the incarnation of Liszt’. Liszt himself proclaimed Menter as his successor (on the other hand, she wasn’t the only one of his pupils that he so declared).In the Liszt cycle Soirées de Vienne, composed between 1846 and 1852, Liszt looked at Schubert’s dances for his inspiration. He chose Schubert’s Waltzes, Ländler, Ecossaisen, and German dances, all of which were Viennese dances in ¾ time. For the nine parts of the Soirées, Liszt chose themes from Schubert’s 38 Waltzes, Ländler, and Ecossaises, D.145 (composed 1815–1821); 36 Originaltänze, D.365; Wiener Damen-Ländler und Ecossaisen, D.734 (1816–1821); Valses sentimentales, D.779 (ca 1823); 18 German Dances and Ecossaises, D.783 (1823-1824); and 12 Valses nobles, D.969 (1826).

Three Concert Études (Trois études de concert), S 144,were composed between 1845–49 and published in Paris as Trois caprices poétiques with the three individual titles as they are known today.

As the title indicates, they are intended not only for the acquisition of a better technique, but also for concert performance. Liszt was himself a virtuoso pianist and was able to easily play many complex patterns generally considered difficult. The Italian subtitles now associated with the études—Il lamento (“The Lament”), La leggierezza (“Lightness”), and Un sospiro (“A sigh”)—first appeared in the French edition.

Carnaval. Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes Robert Schumann 

Carnaval had its origin in a set of variations on a Sehnsuchtswalzer by Franz Schubert , whose music Schumann had discovered only in 1827. The catalyst for writing the variations may have been a work for piano and orchestra by Schumann’s close friend Ludwig Schuncke,a set of variations on the same Schubert theme. Schumann felt that Schuncke’s heroic treatment was an inappropriate reflection of the tender nature of the Schubert piece, so he set out to approach his variations in a more intimate way, working on them in 1833 and 1834.

Schumann’s work was never completed, however, and Schuncke died in December 1834, but he did re-use the opening 24 measures for the opening of Carnaval. 

The 21 pieces are connected by a recurring motif . The four notes are encoded puzzles, and Schumann predicted that “deciphering my masked ball will be a real game for you.”

Both Schumann and his wife Clara considered his solo piano works too difficult for the general public. ( Chopin is reported to have said that Carnaval was not music at all.Chopin did not warm to Schumann on the two occasions they met briefly and had a generally low opinion of his music.) Consequently, the works for solo piano were rarely performed in public during Schumann’s lifetime, although Liszt performed selections from Carnaval in Leipzig in March 1840, omitting certain movements with Schumann’s consent. Six months after Schumann’s death, Liszt later wrote that Carnaval was a work “that will assume its natural place in the public eye alongside Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, which in my opinion it even surpasses in melodic invention and conciseness”.

Sphinxs consists of three sections, each consisting of one bar on a single staff in bass (F) clef, with no key, tempo, or dynamic indications. The notes are written as breves . The pitches given are the notes E♭C B A (SCHA) and A♭C B (AsCH) and A E♭C B (ASCH). Many pianists and editors, including Clara Schumann, advocate for omitting the Sphinxs in performance.

These are musical cryptograms , as follows:

• A, E♭, C, B – German: A–Es–C–H (the Es is pronounced as a word for the letter S)
• A♭, C, B – German: As–C–H
• E♭, C, B, A – German: as Es–C–H–A

The first two spell the German name for the town of Asch (now As in the Czech Republic), in which Schumann’s then fiancée, Ernestine von Fricken, was born.The sequence of letters also appears in the German word Fasching, meaning carnival. In addition, Asch is German for “Ash”, as in Ash Wednesday , the first day of Lent. Lastly, it encodes a version of the composer’s name, Robert Alexander Schumann. The third series, S–C–H–A, encodes the composer’s name again with the musical letters appearing in Schumann, in their correct order.