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| A portrait of Franz Liszt | ||
| Liszt | – | Transcendental Etude No. 1 |
| Liszt | – | Impromptu in F sharp |
| Liszt | – | Au Bord d'une Source (Beside a spring) |
| Schubert /Liszt |
– | Ständchen (Serenade) |
| Liszt | – | Sonetto 104 del Petrarca |
| Liszt | – | Toccata |
| Liszt | – | Un Sospiro (Etude de concert No. 3) |
| Liszt | – | Consolation No. 3 |
| Schumann /Liszt |
– | Frühlingsnacht (Spring Night) |
| Liszt | – | Chasse-Neige (Snow storm) |
| Liszt | – | Sancta Dorothea |
| Liszt | – | Am Grabe Richard Wagners (At Richard Wagner's Grave) |
| Liszt | – | Alleluja |
Throughout his life, Franz Liszt burned the candle at both ends. A child prodigy who became the greatest keyboard virtuoso of his time, he was also a prolific composer, whose output ranged from hundreds of piano pieces to symphonies, tone poems, songs and oratorios.
An indefatigable traveller, a friend and supporter of Berlioz, Schumann, Chopin and Wagner, his life was crammed full of incident and romance, and he was drawn to women like a moth to a flame. "A Heart in Pilgrimage" was how he once described his romantic life, reflecting also that his choices with women had often been unwise ones.
Drawn largely from his prolific and colourful letters and interspersed with some of his most ecstatic and expressive piano music, Odyssey of Love is a portrait of his relationship with the two most important women in his life: the aristocratic freethinking rebel and mother of his three children, Marie d'Agoult and the bizarre cigar-smoking intellectual Princess Carolyne von Sayn Wittgenstein.
Odyssey of Love premièred at the Wigmore Hall in February 2008 in the London Pianoforte Series with actors Joanna David and Martin Jarvis. Other actors have included Rosalind Ayres, Orla Charlton, Stanley Townsend and Henry Goodman. Recent and future performances include the Salisbury Playhouse, Rye Festival, Sao Lourenco Algarve, Beaumaris Festival, St. George's Bristol, Chelsea Festival and Bury St Edmunds Festival, Royal Hall Harrogate, Lincoln Festival and Sheffield Festival. The US première took place in December 2008 at LA Theatreworks, Los Angeles. This will be broadcast on National Public Radio across the USA this year.
Acknowledged as one of Britain's finest pianists, Lucy Parham first came to public attention on winning the 1984 BBC TV Young Musician of the Year Piano Class, since when she has performed extensively throughout the UK and Europe, South Africa, USA, Canada and Russia. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music with Joan Havill where she won all the major prizes including the Gold Medal Rosebowl. As concerto soloist abroad she has appeared with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra at the Tchaikowsky Hall in Moscow, L'Orchestre Rencontres Suisse, Bergen Philharmonic, L'Orchestre National de Lille, and three UK tours with the Polish National Radio SO and the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2002 she was the soloist with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth on their six-week 50th Anniversary tour of the USA and she has toured the UK, Mexico and Turkey with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Lucy Parham made her Wigmore Hall debut in 1989, and has since appeared regularly at all the major London venues. As concerto soloist she has performed with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Philharmonia, RTE Orchestra, Brighton Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, London Mozart Players, City of London Sinfonia, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Hallé and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductors include Barry Wordsworth, Sir Charles Groves, Bryden Thompson, Richard Hickox, Antoni Wit, Owain Arwel Hughes, Yoav Talmi, Martyn Brabbins, John Wilson and Jean-Claude Cassadesus. Festivals include Brighton, City of London, Leeds Castle, Rye, Bury St Edmunds, Three Choirs, Newbury, Winchester, Harrogate, BBC Proms, Chelsea, Cardiff, North Norfolk, Oxford, Bergen, Istanbul and the Cervantes in Mexico City.
In recent years, Lucy Parham has established herself as one of the leading interpreters of Robert and Clara Schumann. Her unique recording of their piano concertos, with the BBC Concert Orchestra/Wordsworth (Sanctuary Classics,) won the BBC Music Magazine "Critics' Choice of the Year." Her other recordings include concertos by Ravel, Franck and Fauré with the RPO for RPO Records, Rhapsody in Blue with the BBC Concert Orchestra for BBC Worldwide and with the RPO for EMI Gold, and a solo Chopin disc for ABM. "The Romantic Piano" for Sanctuary Classics was released in January 2005 and a year later her solo Schumann CD was released on ASV.
Lucy Parham has been a frequent guest and presenter for several BBC Radio 3 and 4 programmes, including and Building a Library, The Essay, Music Matters, Composer of the Week, Sunday Salon and CD Review, as well as a contributor to BBC Music Magazine and Pianist Magazine. In both 2006 and 2009 she was seen on BBC 4 TV as commentator for the six programmes about the Leeds International Piano Competition. She was on the jury for the Final of the 2008 and 2010 BBC TV Young Musician of the Year and a BBC Radio 3 commentator for the Concerto Final.
Her highly successful words and music concert "Beloved Clara" premiered in the 2002 Wigmore Hall Masters Series. It explores the complex lives of Brahms, and Robert and Clara Schumann told in their own words, through diary extracts and music. Performances have included actors Joanna David, Martin Jarvis, Edward Fox, Henry Goodman, Timothy West, Gabrielle Drake and Charles Dance. The CD of Beloved Clara (featuring Joanna David and Martin Jarvis) is available on Sanctuary/ASV. Critically acclaimed, it was also chosen as CD of the Week in the Sunday Times, Guardian and Observer. Her
subsequent words and music evening "Liszt – An Odyssey of Love", premièred in 2008 in the London Pianoforte Series at the Wigmore Hall and both Odyssey of Love and Beloved Clara received their US premières in Los Angeles in December 2008 and were broadcast throughout the USA on National Public Radio.
Her most recent evening in the trilogy," Nocturne – The Romantic Life of Frédéric Chopin" received its London première in the London Pianoforte Series at the Wigmore Hall in July 2010 with Harriet Walter and Samuel West. Actors involved in other performances include Juliet Stevenson, Rosamund Pike, Alex Jennings and Greg Wise. The CD of "Nocturne" is due for release in 2011.
In 2006 Lucy Parham was the director of the 150th anniversary Schumann Festival, "The Poet Speaks" at Cadogan Hall, London and in October 2010 she was the director of the week-long Schumann 200 Festival at Kings Place in London.
This was a concert with a difference, for the artistes were an internationally renowned pianist (as you would expect) and two very well-known actors (the first of their profession in over 350 Andover Music Club concerts). The event was a performance of a 'biopic' on the life of Franz Liszt written by Lucy Parham and entitled 'Odyssey of Love' telling his story in his music, played by Lucy Parham (piano), and from contemporary written sources acted by Joanna David and Martin Jarvis.
It was a wonderful performance. The actors brought the letters and diaries of Liszt and his mistresses vividly to life, and it was as if we were watching Liszt's life roll to its sad ending in front of our very eyes. The drama of the spoken word was beautifully contrasted by the choice of Liszt's music which interspersed the scenes. The stage too played its part to perfection with period furniture loaned by Globe Galleries which made for a very intimate setting, made all the more attractive by a lovely floor-level flower arrangement by June Saunders. DE
