Beethoven at home in the Nineteenth Century

A free lunchtime concert performed by University of Southampton Music Students.

In the days before recordings and orchestras in every city, the way people got to know orchestral music was in arrangements for piano duets. The University of Southampton is the fortunate possessor of the Cadwallader Bequest. It is a unique collection of bound piano duet arrangements of the orchestral and chamber works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms and Dvořák. They are practically complete (including concertos, and even the solo piano sonatas of Brahms!). They include all the symphonies, symphonic poems and concertos of Saint-Saëns and César Franck, some of them arranged by no less a master than Fauré. There are symphonies and overtures by Schubert and Mendelssohn, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Introduction & Allegro and both symphonies, and selections from Holst, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Smetana and Widor.

The University also has two beautiful grand pianos. Our concert goes one better even than this magnificent music collection – not four hands but EIGHT. Our pianists will get to know these great works from the inside out.

Part of the Artistic Temperaments Keyboard Festival