Charles Owen, who will be giving the Saturday evening recital is no stranger to St Laurence’s. As well as being an internationally eminent soloist, he has also established one of the world’s leading two piano partnerships with his Russian colleague Katya Apekisheva and together they performed in St Laurence’s as part of the Summer Arts Festival in 2014. We invited him back the following year (playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations) and then in 2018 he gave the inaugural recital on our own Steinway Model D festival piano.
This piano, which is 100 years old, was originally part of the Steinway fleet and later was to be found at Marlborough College. We had it totally rebuilt by Piano Restorations in Buckinghamshire, where we had a works outing to see it being restored to its former glory. The casing was refurbished elsewhere in Europe, so it is now almost as new.
The first half of Charles’ recital will comprise the set of Chopin’s 24 preludes. Many of us will have played a number of these (but probably not the most difficult ones!) during our childhood music lessons. Charles will show us how they should really be played.
Below is a little taster of Charles’ approach to Chopin—the Barcarolle, Op. 60, performed as part of his 50th Birthday Concert at Menuhin Hall.