Glazer performs Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin

Frank Glazer, a resident artist at Bates College since 1980 and arguably Maine’s best-known pianist, plays a concert of works by Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin at 7 p.m. Friday, April 5, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall at Bates, 75 Russell Street. The concert is free and open to the public.

Glazer’s program traces a musical path from the Classic to the Romantic eras. The oldest work is Beethoven’s Sonata in G major (Op. 79), from 1809. Seldom performed, this light, melodious sonata nevertheless nicely represents the early Beethoven.

In 1827, the year before he died, Schubert wrote two sets each of four impromptus. This program features the second set (D. 935; Op. 142). The impromptus are introspective, lyrical works with an improvisational air, and as such make an appropriate stylistic bridge to the highly Romantic Chopin that ends the evening.

In fact, some commentators hear echoes of late Schubert in Chopin’s Sonata No. 3 in B Minor (Op. 58), written in 1844. One of the Polish pianist’s great masterpieces, this work’s four movements cut a wide swath through the tragic side of the emotional spectrum, from the somber slow movement to the famed funeral march.

Glazer is an artist of international stature who taught at the Eastman School of Music for 15 years before retiring to Maine with his wife, Ruth, in 1980. The couple founded the Saco River Festival, which is held in Cornish every summer. A student of pianist Artur Schnabel in the 1930s and ’40s, Glazer is one of the few proteges of that great musician remaining. Glazer’s long career includes numerous recordings, his own television program in the 1950s and countless solo recitals and performances with orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the New England Piano Quartette, of which he was a founder.

For more information about the performance, please call 207-786-6135.