Elegie: Rachmaninoff - A Heart In Exile

‘One of the must-see events on the musical calendar’ BBC Music Magazine


Elégie is the fifth ‘Composer Portrait’ concert to be compiled and scripted by Lucy Parham.

Known internationally for her ‘Composer Portraits’ in words and music, pianist Lucy Parham has created a new programme for 2016. It chronicles the life of composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff. Though he became an exile in 1917, Russia remained deeply rooted in his soul. His cultural identity and his longing for his homeland imbue his music, not least the many much-loved works he wrote for his own instrument, the piano. The narrative, scripted from letters and diaries, follows Rachmaninoff from his youth in Russia, through his subsequent self-imposed exile in 1917 and finally to California USA, where he died in 1943.

This programme includes many of Rachmaninoff's best-loved works for solo piano, including a selection of Preludes, Etudes-Tableaux and Moments Musicaux, some of his own transcriptions and the haunting Ele?gie, as well as works by Scriabin and Tchaikovsky.
Proceeds from this event raise funds to support the Rose Theatre.

Lucy Parham, piano
Henry Goodman, narrator