Top Schubert interpreter set to perform

Pianist Michael Endres will perform for Tauranga Musica in his inaugural debut recital tour of New Zealand, performing at the Bethlehem College Performing Arts Centre this Sunday at 3pm.
The German Endres, Julliard and London trained, is considered one of the world's top Schubert interpreters. He was a prizewinner at the Geza Anda and International Schubert Competition in Switzerland and Germany; his discography includes the complete sonatas of Mozart, Schubert, Weber and Bax, and complete solo works of Ravel and Schumann; and he has appeared throughout the US, Europe and Asia in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Musikverein Vienna, and Suntory Hall.
Endres also accompanied baritone Hermann Prey for many years, and has appeared in major festivals in the US and Europe. Since 2009, he has resided in the South Island. He is professor of piano at the University of Canterbury.
Endres will play works by Schubert, Gareth Farr, Schumann and Leopold Godowsky.
Sonata A-major D 959 Op. Posth Franz Schubert (1797-1828).Franz Schubert was not only a prolific songwriter but also the creator of 12 finished piano sonatas and a considerable number of sonata fragments. He also wrote the widely known eight Impromptus and about 400 dances for piano. Though only a modest pianist ("the devil shall play this," he remarked about his fiendishly difficult Wanderer Fantasy), his sonatas in their demands belong to the most important works written for this genre.
The sonata in A-major D 959 belongs to Schubert's last three posthumously published sonatas for piano, all written in the year of his death in 1828.
Sepuluh Jari Gareth Farr (1968-)New Zealander Gareth Farr wrote Sepuluh Jari in 1996. In the foreword the composer states, in a recently-unearthed letter, apparently in the hand of J.S. Bach:
"... and here it is, my recently completed toccata, Sepuluh Jari - it means '10 fingers' in the native language here on the island of Bali. I'm forever grateful to you for persuading me to take leave from my position as church organist and spend a year in the Hindu lands of India and Bali. I have found the rhythms and scales of the music here so inspirational that I could not stop them from creeping into this piece. You must forgive me, though, if it gets a little crazy at times; a strange potion offered me from a coconut shell may be to blame - it made me feel quite queer ..."
Carnaval Opus 9 Schumann (1810 - 1856)Carnaval Opus 9 (or Sc�s mignonnes sur quatre notes - Little Scenes on Four Notes) was composed from 1834-1835. It consists of a collection of short pieces representing masked revellers at carnival, a festival before Easter. Schumann gives musical expression to himself, his friends and colleagues, and characters from improvised Italian comedy (commedia dell'arte).
Wine, Women and Song, Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938)Leopold Godowsky was the enfant terrible of the golden age of piano playing. Born in Russia (now Lithuania), he emigrated in his teens to the US, where he pursued a highly successful career as a pianist. From 1900-1914, he lived in Berlin but returned to the US at the beginning of World War I, becoming one of the most influential and revered pianists of his time before suffering a stroke in 1930 that damaged his career irrevocably.
Tickets are available from Baycourt/TicketDirect and will be on sale at the door on concert day, Sunday, at 3pm.