Sunday 28^th September 2025

3.00 pm

Runtime: 120 minutes

Colyer-Fergusson Hall

The Gulbenkian Arts Centre

University of Kent

“Vienna and the New World”

Marianne Kelly and Heather Sargeson

Piano Duetists

Biographies

We are so pleased to welcome Marianne and Heather to play for the inaugural concert of our 84^th Season. They first met while studying music at Sheffield University, forming a piano duo which gave many recitals and won Sheffield’s Young Performers’ Competition. They played together professionally for a number of years before diverging career paths took Heather into the secondary education sector and Marianne into orchestra management. The duo re-united in 2015, returning to the University of Sheffield for a performance of the piano duet version of Brahms’ German Requiem, and have since played regularly in Buxton as part of the Festival Fringe. They gave recitals of music in the United Reformed Church in Buxton, and at the Church of St Mary and St Eanswythe’s in Folkestone in 2023 and 2024.

Programme

Aaron Copland: Variations on a Shaker Melody from Appalachian Spring arr. Bennett Lerner

Wolfgang A Mozart: Fantasia In F minor, K608

A single movement work with three audible sections
1. Allegro in the style of a solemn French Overture
2. Andante serene and flowing variations
3. Allegro return to the French Overture as Coda.

Samuel Barber: "Souvenirs" Ballet Suite, Opus 28

1. Waltz
2. Schottische
3. Pas de deux
4. Two Step
5. Hesitation - Tango
6. Galop

Interval

Franz Schubert: Fantasia in F minor, D.940

The Fantasia is in four interconnected movements played without pause.
1. Allegro molto moderato
2. Largo
3. Scherzo. Allegro Vivace
4. Finale. Allegro molto moderato

George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue arr. Henry Levine

Programme Notes

AARON COPLAND

Born 1900, Brooklyn, New York. Died 1990, Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Youngest of five children, Copland was born to Lithuanian immigrants who owned a department store and had few connections with the Arts world. With encouragement from his mother and sisters Copland arranged his own musical education and, after piano lessons as a child, went on to study harmony and composition for several years in New York with conservative style Ruben Goldmark who regarded him as being "the young modernist" of his class. In his early twenties Copland furthered his education by studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. After considerable success in Europe, Copland  returned to the USA determined to find and promote a distinct American sound and indeed, being at the centre of contemporary music for decades, his efforts helped to establish American music on the world scene.

"Appalachian Spring", a ballet created by Copland and choreographer Martha Graham, was premiered in 1944 and was well received, earning Copland the Pulitzer Prize for music during its 1945 US tour. Shaker themes are ever present in “Appalachian Spring “ and include "Simple Gifts", the melody of the title in this work which was arranged for piano duet by Bennett Lerner from part of the original ballet score. The lyrics connected this ‘Hymn’ with the original ballet's theme of peace and remembrance during wartime: “ ‘Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free…."

W.A. MOZART

Born 1756, Salzburg, Austria. Died 1791, Vienna, Austria.

Mozart was one of the most influential, popular and prolific composers of the Classical period. His widely recognised genius shines brightly in the most famous and loved of his over six hundred works and also in this, less well known, Fantasia in F minor, K608. This was originally composed in 1790-91 as one of three pieces for a mechanical clock (a machine attached to a small pipe organ that could play automatically by means of a rotating cylinder with ‘pins’ like a sophisticated music box). It has been described as "A wonderfully intricate piece of music written for an amazingly complex piece of machinery" This “piece of machinery" was owned by Count Joseph Deym, an enthusiast for mechanical clocks and automata. "Mozart's technique and invention in this medium rivalled the mathematical precision which created the interlocking gears of the mechanism for which the Fantasia was written." The F minor piece written for Deym didn't gain the title of "Fantasia" until it was arranged for piano duet on two pianos in the 19th century by Ferruccio Busoni. The piece we are to hear today was arranged for four hands at one piano by G. Henle Verlag, after Busoni. In a one-movement, multisectoral work this Fantasia combines diverse styles including solemn French Overture, Bach fugal counterpoint and classical Theme and Variations arranged in three audible sections played "attacca" befitting the mechanical context of the original.

SAMUEL BARBER

Born 1910, West Chester, Pennsylvania. Died 1981, Fifth Avenue, New York.

Another child prodigy who composed his first work at seven years old, Barber is most widely known for his famous "Adagio for Strings" (originally the slow movement of a String Quartet written in 1936). He wrote many works for orchestra, ballet, concerti, chamber ensembles, sonatas, piano solos and duets. However, two thirds of his output was for vocal ensembles, choirs and operas which reflected his early career as a professional Baritone. "Souvenirs", Ballet Suite Opus 28 was originally written for four hands at one piano in 1952. The six pieces are distinct in their character yet collectively create a cohesive work of art. Barber is quoted "In 1952 I was writing some duets to play with my friend Charles Turner for four hands on one piano and Lincoln Kirstein suggested I orchestrate them for a ballet. One might imagine a ‘divertissement’ set in the Palm Court of the Hotel Plaza in New York circa 1914 - epoch of the first Tangos; Souvenirs remembered with affection, not in irony or with tongue in cheek, but in amused tenderness". "Souvenirs" requires a high degree of technical proficiency from both performers. With its inherent lyricism and sensitivity, Barber's musical style infuses each piece with an enchanting quality that transports the listener to a bygone era.

FRANZ SCHUBERT

Born 1797, Vienna, Austria. Died 1828, Vienna, Austria.

During his short life Schubert composed many piano pieces amongst which "Fantasia" is one of Schubert's most important works for the piano. Composed in 1828, the last year of his life, and initially dedicated to his former pupil Caroline Esterhazy, it was described by Christopher Gibbs as "among not only his greatest but his most original composition for piano duet" and was published posthumously in 1829 by Schubert's friends and family. The Fantasia is in four interconnected movements played without pause. The structural idea of a fantasia in four connected movements also appears in Schubert's "Wanderer Fantasy" and represents a stylistic bridge between the traditional Sonata form and the essentially free-form Tone Poem. This influenced the work of Franz Liszt who subsequently arranged the "Wanderer Fantasy" as a Piano Concerto.

GEORGE GERSHWIN

Born 1898, Brooklyn, New York. Died 1937, Hollywood, California.

Born in Brooklyn in 1898 to Russian immigrant parents Gershwin was the second of four children. Beginning music lessons aged 11 years after his family bought a piano for his elder brother Ira, George went on at the age of 15 to work as a ‘song plugger’ and composer at Tin Pan Alley. A close and successful partnership formed with Ira as lyricist resulted in numerous successful Broadway shows. Gershwin pioneered fusing American Jazz and popular music styles with classical forms in his orchestral work “Rhapsody in Blue” which was commissioned by Band Leader Paul  Whiteman, and elevated his reputation to celebrity status. At the premier in 1924 at the Aeolian Hall Gershwin played the piano with the Whiteman Band to celebrate Lincoln's birthday [with principal clarinet, Ross Gorman, becoming famous for playing the clarinet glissando at the opening as a joke in rehearsal to the enjoyment of all present! (later committed to posterity by Al Galladoro on the first recording).] The original score was written for two pianos and then orchestrated by Ferde Grote, Whiteman's arranger, and today's arrangement for four hands at one piano by Henry Levine is after this original score. Gershwin is quoted by Barbara Leish as "he heard it as a sort of musical Kaleidoscope of America - of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness!"

Programme notes kindly prepared by Annie Bentley

Tickets from

Gulbenkian Box Office

Full: £25

Students & Under 25s: FREE