18–19 May 2024

Concert 3 - Last Songs

Sunday 22 May 2022 at 11.00 am

Liszt’s late piano works prefigure many of the stylistic innovations that followed: not least the ambiguous tonality of Debussy’s own late sonata and the prodigious imaginings of Lili Boulanger. In a thrilling Australian premiere, Seraphim Trio presents ‘Imaginary Ballet’ by Brett Dean with violist Chris Moore, composed for them during the Covid pandemic. Kreisler’s fond ‘Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta’ dates from the same year as Strauss’s sublime ‘Four Last Songs’, heard here in a vivid arrangement for chamber ensemble by Australian composer James Ledger.

Franz Liszt
‘Nuages gris’ (1881) and ‘Bagatelle sans tonalité’ (1885)
Paavali Jumppanen (piano)

Claude Debussy
Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (1915)
Julia Grenfell (flute), Christopher Moore (viola), Philippa McAuliffe (harp)

Lili Boulanger
‘D’un matin de printemps’ (1917)
Helen Ayres (violin), Lucinda Collins (piano)

Brett Dean
‘Imaginary Ballet’ (2021) — Australian premiere
Seraphim Trio, Christopher Moore (viola)

~ Interval ~

Fritz Kreisler
‘Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta’ (1948)
Andrew Haveron (violin), Anna Goldsworthy (piano)

Richard Strauss
‘Four Last Songs’ (1948, published posthumously 1950)
Lorina Gore (soprano) with chamber ensemble