Roland Pöntinen

Roland Pöntinen is among Sweden’s top pianists. With insightful musicality, he cuts into the essence of the music and always moves equally comfortably through a repertoire spanning from the great classics to newly composed pieces.

He is also famous for his extreme virtuosity, which we will get a sample of at this concert, in one of Franz Liszt’s both musically and technically unparalleled etudes from Etudes d’exécution transcendante. We will hear other sides of Franz Liszt in the dreamy En Rêve and the delicately meditative Wiegenlied, which means lullaby.

Pöntinen begins with Schubert’s majestic Sonata in A-Minor. We will also hear newly composed music by Roland Pöntinen’s brother Stefan and the highly acclaimed Canadian Kati Agóc’s Nostalgia For Airs Unheard, a tribute in memory of the pianist Glenn Gould. In a magnificent conclusion, Pöntinen performs Rachmaninoff’s harmonically exploratory and highly demanding 13 Preludes, Opus 32.