Alexa MacLaren piano
John Stringer conductor

Mel Bonis Le Songe de Cléopâtre
Mendelssohn Piano Concerto no. 1 in G minor
Busoni Berceuse élégiaque
Strauss Death and Transfiguration

The music of Mel Bonis is starting to get the attention it deserves nearly 100 years after her death. After being encouraged by Franck at an early age, studying alongside Debussy in Paris and then early critical acclaim, Bonis had a complicated life that means her music is only now coming to the public’s attention, with the evocative Le Songe de Cléopâtre receiving its premiere in 2012. The subdued mood and reflective quality of Busoni’s Berceuse élégiaque (premiered by Mahler in his final concert in 1911) are carried through to Strauss’ tone poem Death and Transfiguration, but in this work, the depiction of the trials and tribulations of life open out into a glorious sunlit and peaceful C major at its close. The programme is completed with a performance of Mendelssohn’s ever-popular First Piano Concerto with final-year student Alexa MacLaren as the soloist.