Joanna Kacperek’s auspicious debut album ‘Variations’ brings a fascinating programme of challenging pieces fit for a virtuosic pianist from great romantic composers; Beethoven, Brahms, the Schumanns, Dutilleux, Chaminade and Chopin.

Clara Schumann’s Variations on a theme of Robert Schumann were a set of works Clara had dedicated to her husband Robert on his birthday in 1853, just three short years before he passed. Brahms’s Theme and Variations is a piano transcription of his Sextet in B flat, a chamber work that upon hearing it, Clara Schumann grew delighted and requested Brahms to write for piano for her pleasure. Closing the album is Dutilleux’s Choral and  Variations from his Piano Sonata, a piece that was dedicated and premiered by his wife Geneviève Joy in 1948. Many of the featured works of this album have a personal touch to them, as they were dedicated to someone close to the composer’s hearts.

The remaining works of ‘Variations’ are those which have recieved less spectacle and are slowly being rediscovered today; Chopin’s Variations brillantes, Robert Schumann’s Etudes in Variation Form on a Theme by Beethoven (based on Beethoven’s Symhony no.7, movement II) and Cécile Chaminade’s Thème varié.