Melbourne Recital Centre: Pieter Wispelwey with Piers Lane – Night III
18 September @ 7:30 pm - 9:20 pm AEST

A trilogy through time.
Pieter Wispelwey’s concert trilogy concludes as he and Piers Lane delve into music’s most profound emotional territories, anchored by Benjamin Britten’s haunting Third Cello Suite.
César Franck’s radiant Violin Sonata, equally compelling on cello, unfolds with soaring expression. Frédéric Chopin’s final published work, his only Cello Sonata, reveals the composer’s unique chamber music voice: dramatic, structurally ambitious, with piano and cello in deep musical conversation.
Between these Romantic monuments stands Britten’s Suite No.3, the most personal and spiritual of the three. Composed in 1971 with Russian themes honouring Rostropovich and Shostakovich, it concludes with a deeply emotive Passacaglia quoting the Orthodox Kontakion for the Dead, drawing listeners into a place of stillness.
Where Franck and Chopin wear their hearts on their sleeves, Britten retreats inward, distilling the entire series’ emotional journey into a masterful, enduring finale.
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