Songs and sonnets of travelers: Chopin, Viardot, LisztThe Classical Singers

Announcing the first concert in our “Give me my song” series, “Songs and sonnets of travelers: Chopin, Viardot, Liszt” on Monday 21st February 2022, this time with 3 pianists launching this series that goes in search for what is personal to a composer’s heart – his or her “song” – or at least his or her cosmopolitan mind and soul, while also celebrating the friendship and collaboration between these 3 virtuosi-composers.

We are excited to have with us 3 pianists that include Warren Lee, Hong Kong’s very own piano prodigy, who will be performing a major piece about a young literary hero’s search to the questions “what do I wish?” and “what am I?“, from Book 1 of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), Vallée d’Obermann, as well as Chopin’s mesmerising Barcarolle, Op.60 in F sharp major, the composer’s imaginative journey into moonlight on Venetian waters, Yoonie Han a Korean-American pianist “well worth getting to know” and known for her “flowing tone …[and] heavenly singing melodies”, who can be expected to spin some poetic magic playing the Liszt transcriptions of Chopin songs as well as the aforementioned Etudes Op.10, while our very own Sylvia Chan will sing some French and German songs as well as probe the depths of Chopin’s Ballade #4, one of the most exalted, intense and sublimely powerful of all Chopin’s compositions.

With guest appearances from cellist Richard Bamping and man-of-letters-cum-storyteller Daniel Chua, we hope to re-create the atmosphere of a 21st-century music salon at City Hall theatre in Central, with the programme also including probably the Asian first performance of Viardot’s songs including Die Sterne (“the stars”) and Fleur desséchée (the withered flower), a rare performance of the songs of Liszt including Oh! quand je dors (“Ah while I sleep”), as well as Saint-Saëns’s Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix (from Samson et Dalila, an opera dedicated to Viardot) and Fauré’s Après un rêve, a song that was inspired by Viardot and the influence of Italian poetry.