Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason joins the Orchestra of Opera North as soloist in Dohnányi’s ‘Variations on a Nursery Tune’ at Huddersfield Town Hall on Thursday 1 December.
Book tickets
“I think it’s a great piece for a debut”, she says: “it’s a lot of fun for both me and the Orchestra, and I‘m really looking forward to playing in such a spectacular building”.
The Orchestra of Opera North in Huddersfield Town Hall © Justin Slee
In her busy international career as a soloist and chamber musician, Isata performs interesting and lesser-known works alongside big beasts from the canon, from Haydn and Mozart, via Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, to Chopin, Gershwin and beyond.
Her debut album Romance, a selection of Clara Schumann’s piano music, topped the UK classical charts in 2019, and last year she released and toured a best-selling album of duets with her younger brother, the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason.
“’Variations on a Nursery Tune’ is certainly more difficult than the title might suggest, but that’s part of its humour really”, she says. “It’s both stunningly simple and virtuosic at the same time and Dohnányi dances between these two ideas”.
A brilliant pianist himself, the Hungarian composer Ernst von Dohnányi was admired by the likes of Brahms early on his career, and as a conductor he was among the first to popularize the music of his countryman Bartók. But despite his huge influence on the Hungarian music of his time, ‘Variations…’ is the only work of his that is still regularly performed today.
In the first of a series of witty musical jokes, Dohnányi completely wrong-foots the listener with an absolutely terrifying Introduction, burying a few clues to the Nursery Tune beneath hammering timpanis, clashing brass and sinister strings:
Over the next 20 minutes, he takes the theme of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ through a series of thirteen variations, including two marches, a waltz, a gorgeous rippling passacaglia, and a fantastically speedy finale, all of which make incredible demands on the pianist.
“There are also quotes from Debussy, Brahms and Strauss, and other musical allusions”, Isata continues.
All in all, these warm and humorous settings offer a chance to hear all the colours of the orchestra – and the mischievous, playful side of the composer, who intended it ‘For the enjoyment of humorous people and for the annoyance of others’! You’ll also hear Isata leading the ensemble of almost 80 players through these thrilling musical gear changes.
Making another Opera North debut, Italian conductor Valentina Peleggi, Music Director of the Richmond Symphony, takes the podium for the concert, which is completed by Puccini’s early masterpiece Preludio sinfonico and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, his “unburdening of the soul in music”. There’s also a chance to hear the first ever performance of our latest Minute Masterpiece: composer Dominic Veall‘s Disordered Quarters.
Tickets are available from £13 + concessions, with seats for Under 30s priced at £4, and anyone aged 16 and under for just £1.
Book tickets
