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Friends of Music

Posted On December 13, 2013 | 11:06 am | by lainw | Permalink
Joel Fan | November 3 and 4, 2013

Pianist Joel Fan played for the Friends of Music on November 3 and 4. Mr. Fan crafted a program of "music written from 1831 to 1893, by four composers each of whom understood Romanticism in a distinct way and whose oeuvres could not sound more distinctive." Solidly in the standard repertoire were the Polonaise-fantaisie, Op. 61, by Frédéric Chopin; the Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118, by Johannes Brahms; and the Mephisto Waltz No. 1, by Franz Liszt. The program's two works by Richard Wagner were less familiar. Mr. Fan performed the Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, arranged by the brilliant and eccentric Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould. By tweaking the score in a few places, Mr. Fan managed to play with only two hands Gould's transcription for four. The most obscure work on the program (and Wagner's last major work for piano) was the Grand Sonata for Piano in A Major, Op. 4, completed when the composer was eighteen.