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I attended a concert which was broadcast live as part of the BBC’s mammoth Schubertiad, Elisabeth Leonskaja playing the last two piano sonatas, D959 and D960, in the Assembly Rooms.
The audience was not very large, and I knew a fair number of them, which gave the event the feel of a private party. In fact, on talking to some it became clear that almost all of us, myself included, had been given our tickets by various cultural organisations in Bath. I suspect that the tickets had probably not sold well because there isn’t a regular concert series at the Assembly Rooms outside the Music Festival and the Mozartfest, so people didn’t really know about it. So a few days ago tickets were distributed via channels that were likely to reach music lovers.
Anyway we agreed that the concert really should have attracted a bigger audience. She favoured slower tempi and a less demonstrative style than some. Apart from a moment in one encore, it was all note perfect. The encores were the slow movement of D664 and, almost inevitably, the impromptu in Gb.