Programme Notes for
The Joy of Music Festival 2026
17 October 2026
ALEXANDER DORONIN, Piano
1st Prizewinner, Hong Kong International Piano Competition 2025
Logos Chamber Group
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fantasia & Fugue in A minor (BWV.904) is a standalone work for harpsichord composed around 1725, although it could have easily been for organ given its sheer inventiveness. The fantasia (or prelude) is built around the A minor triad, while regularly shifting tonal centres, however it does not really prepare one for the amazing fugue, which looks forward to the mastery of The Art of Fugue, composed about two decades later. The chromatic second subject with descending notes is way ahead of its time, a bold statement which may be compared that of the great Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue (BWV.903) that came just before it.
The young Dmitri Shostakovich was a very proficient pianist, even venturing to participate in the inaugural Chopin International Piano Competition in 1927 where he received merely an honourable mention, much to his disappointment. As a composer of piano works, his 24 Preludes (Op.34), composed in the winter of 1932/1933, rank high among important 20th century repertoire. The 24 alternate between major and minor keys, beginning in Bachian C major, traversing the circle of fifths as in the Preludes sets by Chopin (Op.28) and Scriabin (Op.11) before closing in D minor. Short pieces which mostly fall within a single-page and one-minute mark, these exhibit the same playfully anarchic spirit as his First Piano Concerto (Op.35).
Several of these take the form of dances like the waltz (No.2, No.17), polka (No.6) and tarantella (No.9); there is even a fugue (No.4), an etude (No.5). Most notable and frequent are the numbers dripping in ironic humour (No.8, No.11, No.12, No.15, later used in a BBC comedy series and No.16, No.18, No.20, No.21) contrasted with dead seriousness (the funereal No.14), the last orchestrated by no less than Leopold Stokowski. Those imbued with insouciant lyricism (No.3, No.10, No.17, No.19, No.22) are never just that, for coded messages abound, only privy to the composer himself. Even the closing Allegretto of No.24 carries the inscrutable mysteries of the cycle to its final bar.
Johannes Brahms was notoriously finicky about his chamber music, and was known to have discarded much of his early chamber works. What survived the cull has however withstood the test of posterity, with his sole piano quintet as a shining example of what happens when good music gets “recycled”. The work began life as a string quintet (with two cellos), then refashioned as a sonata for two pianos (catalogued as Op.34b, a favourite of piano duos), and finally in 1864 as a piano quintet, one of the greatest of its kind.
Brahms had yet to pen his first symphony, but one finds early aspirations to that cause in the quintet’s form, structure and sound. The works opens quietly with a plain statement of the pensive but unusually absorbing main theme played by piano, violin and cello in unison. This is merely the prelude to the storms and stresses to come, a stark contrast with the serenity of the slow movement which reaches rare heights of nobility.
The scherzo begins quietly but rapidly works itself into a state of agitation and frenzy, incorporating a motif from the first movement as its main rhythmic thrust. A majestic sounding Trio provides some respite before a return to the earlier upheaval. The finale begins on a sombre note (shades of the yet unwritten First Symphony) before lightening up and gaining in tempo. This culminates in music of raw power and energy for a passionate close, fully vindicating the young Brahms’ reputation as Beethoven’s musical heir.
Programme notes by Chang Tou Liang