Kristian Chong & Jack Liebeck: Chamber of the Heart

Pianist Kristian Chong reunites with violinist Jack Liebeck for a program of two sonatas that share a key, G major, and almost nothing else.

Chong is one of Australia’s leading solo and chamber pianists. Liebeck, a British-German violinist, is Artistic Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music and a professor of violin at London’s Royal Academy of Music. Together, they form a musical partnership that has stretched across years of collaboration.

Beethoven’s Sonata in G, Op.96, was the last of his ten piano and violin sonatas, written in 1812 and first performed with his patron and pupil, Archduke Rudolph, at the piano. Warm, tender and pastoral, it opens with a gentle trill passed between the two instruments, and shows a softer side of Beethoven.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Sonata, Op.6, was written while he was still a teenager and first performed in Berlin in 1913 by two of the great musicians of the day. Big, passionate and richly romantic, it is the sound of a young prodigy already at home in the lush harmonies that would later make him one of Hollywood’s most celebrated film composers.

This concert is part of our Chamber of the Heart series. Chamber of the Heart is made possible thanks to the generosity of the Alan and Mary-Louise Archibald Foundation.