Beethoven’s abilities as an
improviser are legendary and the
manner of his development of
musical ideas seems to me to grow
very much out of his practice of
exploring his themes on the piano:
improvising around the material.
As pianist Konstantin Scherbakov
puts it:

“Improvisation itself was
(for Beethoven) not the goal
but a means of exploring and
understanding the material,
its expressive capabilities,
its potential in terms of changing
and transforming.”

In that spirit, this piano concert will include free improvisations but also ones that take as a starting point one or more of Beethoven’s themes,
re-exploring them in the moment.