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Chopin’s last words are said to have been “Play Mozart in memory of me.” Instead, we play Chopin’s own “Marche funèbre” Sonata, in memory of no one in particular.
The first woman ever to win the prestigious Prix de Rome, Lili Boulanger, born in 1893, is our birthday celebrant this evening. Her Nocturne was written for flute and piano, but we hear a transcription for flute and harp, played by flutist Anna Noakes and harpist Gillian Tingay.

The third movement of Frederic Chopin’s 1837 Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, “Marche funèbre,” was actually written earlier, precisely when we do not know. In the gifted hands of Emil Gilels the work is dark and disquieting, but never maudlin.

Have you always wondered what a glass harmonica sounds like? It’s the featured instrument in Mozart’s Adagio and Rondo, K 617, given voice by Dennis James. Sadly, this was Mozart’s work for a chamber group. Brahms once said “It is not hard to compose, but it is wonderfully hard to let the superfluous notes fall under the table.” Is there anything superfluous in his Double Concerto in A? Violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann and cellist Heinrich Schiff are the featured soloists; Wolfgang Sawallisch conducts the London Philharmonic.