Wednesday . 24th April - 8.00pm

DÉNES VÁRJON

PROGRAMME:

Sonata in E Minor Hob. XVI/34  -  Haydn (1732-1809)
1 Presto   2 Adagio   3 Finale: Molto vivace

‘In the Mists’  -  Janácek (1854-1928)
1 Andante   2 Molto adagio   3 Andantino   4 Presto

Four Old Tunes (from ‘Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs’)  -  Bartók (1881-1945)
1 Rubato   2 Andante - Poco sostenuto - Più andante (Tempo I) - Poco sostenuto - Più andante   3 Poco rubato - Sostenuto   4 Andante

Interval

Symphonic Études, Op.13 Schumann (1810-1856)

BIO

You can already hear Dénes Várjon perform from a list of about twenty CDs from the Naxos, Capriccio, and Hungaroton catalogues.

His CD of the Sonatas of Robert Schumann for violin and piano, recorded with Carolin Widmann, was  released in 2008 and brought instant critical acclaim.  He followed this up with a disc of other Schumann pieces, this time with cellist Steven Isserlis, and has also released a solo piano CD of music by Berg, Janáček and Liszt in January last year.  For some weeks you could hear part of the Liszt B-Minor Sonata from that CD on the internet, flamboyantly fronting New York music critic Alex Ross’s music blog.

In his home country of Hungary, Dénes Várjon is regularly to be heard on classical music radio, and outside of Hungary he is a frequent visitor to the world’s most illustrious Festivals, such as Lucerne, Salzburg, Edinburgh, and the Venice Biennale. 

Várjon started his formal muscal education in 1984 at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest.  He was quickly selected as a regular participant in András Schiff’s international master classes, and he gained, among many other awards, the first prize at the Géza Anda Competition in Zurich.  He has performed with many of the world’s major orchestras and is currently working with conductors such as Heinz Holliger, Adam Fischer, and Leopold Hager.

In a scintillating programme for the NZIPF, Dénes Várjon will play Haydn’s wide-ranging E-minor Sonata, Janacek’s ethereal piano composition ”In the Mists” and some Peasant Songs by Bartok.  His second half will be devoted to the composer with whom Várjon has a close affinity - Schumann - and the work he has chosen is the Rheinland composer’s pianistic tour de force  the Symphonic Studies, Op.13.

“Negotiating dynamic shifts of emphasis, Várjon displays that most valuable of gifts: the ability to play in a way which makes you listen anew to the familiar.”  (Andy Gill, The Independent.)