Two Pianos | Bach and Shostakovich
Acclaimed piano duo Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy interweave music by Bach and Shostakovich, in the first of two Aldeburgh Festival performances created especially for the historic Jubilee Hall.
Two pianists on two pianos create a striking dialogue from the preludes and fugues of Bach and Shostakovich. As the conversation flows, the musical thread is passed both from one piano to the other and across the centuries from Bach to Shostakovich and back again. Performed in the round, audiences can experience the music up close in this historic setting.
The Jubilee Hall was the setting for the first Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. The modest seaside hall remains a very special place to hear music, and this year has inspired a diptych of programmes dedicated to poignant and highly personal dialogues with Bach.
Pavel Kolesnikov piano
Samson Tsoy piano
Quietly electrifying intimacyThe Guardian, 2020, on a Kolesnikov and Tsoy duet
Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy selected Yamaha CFX concert grand pianos for today’s concert. With thanks to Yamaha Music for its generous support.
About Jubilee Hall
Nestling in the heart of the seaside town of Aldeburgh in Suffolk sits the historic and much-loved Jubilee Hall. Built in 1887 by local businessman Newson Garrett to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, the hall was intended for “concerts and dramatic entertainments provided by well-known artistes, dances for the little people on wet afternoons and for ‘the grown-ups’ in the evenings”. The Jubilee Hall gained unexpected fame in 1948 when local residents Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears chose it as a venue for their Festival of Music and the Arts. In 1960 it hosted the first ever performance of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and since then many notable opera premières have taken place there, including Britten’s The Little Sweep, William Walton’s The Bear, and Harrison Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy. Although the main venue of the Aldeburgh Festival has moved to Snape Maltings, many of the Festival events continue to take place in the Jubilee Hall, which still holds a special place in the hearts of local audiences.
