To celebrate arguably the world’s greatest classical composer, Guadalajara’s May Cultural Festival will present Welsh pianist Llŷr Williams performing all of Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas in eight presentations: six of them at the Teatro Degollado and two at PALCCO in Zapopan.
Williams, a former BBC New Generation Artist and winner of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust award, was born in Pentrebychan, North Wales, and read music at Queen’s College, Oxford before taking up a postgraduate scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music. He is widely admired for his profound musical intelligence and the expressive and communicative nature of his performances. Williams has performed with leading UK orchestras and has enjoyed a long relationship with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with which in recent seasons he has performed concertos ranging from Mozart and Beethoven to Bartók and Mathias. His extensive discography includes the eight-disc box set “A Schubert Journey” (2020), the 12-volume “Beethoven Unbound” (2018), a double album “Wagner Without Words” (2014), and his latest album, a recording of Schumann’s works.
Williams is an honorary fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and, in 2017, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Wales.
The recitals are scheduled as follows:
Sunday, May 12, 12:30 p.m. Sonatas 1, 3, 2 and 23 (Teatro Degollado).
Tuesday, May 14, 8:30 p.m. Sonatas 12, 9, 10, 13 and 14 (Teatro Degollado).
Wednesday, May 15, 8:30 p.m. Sonatas 5, 11, 22 and 21 (Palcco).
Thursday, May 16, 8:30 p.m. Sonatas 6, 7 and 28 (Teatro Degollado).
Sunday, May 19, 12:30 p.m. Sonatas 16, 8, 19, 27 and 28 (Palcco).
Tuesday, May 21, 8:30 p.m. Sonatas 17, 24, 25 and 18 (Teatro Degollado).
Wednesday, May 22, 8:30 p.m. Sonatas 20, 4, 15 and 26 (Teatro Degollado).
Thursday, May 23, 8:30 p.m. Sonatas 30, 31 and 32 (Teatro Degollado).
Tickets are 150 pesos for the Degollado concerts and 200 pesos at PALCCO.
Beethoven wrote his 32 piano sonatas between 1795 and 1822. Although originally not intended to be a meaningful whole, as a set they comprise one of the most important collections of works in the history of music.
Seen as the first cycle of major piano pieces suited to both private and public performance, the sonatas form a bridge between the worlds of the salon and the concert hall. The first person to play them all in a single concert cycle was Hans von Bülow, who described the sonatas as “The New Testament” of piano literature (Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier being “The Old Testament”).