This Partita is the second of six in the last set of Suites Bach wrote for the keyboard and published collectively in 1731. Perhaps their finality is the reason they are so technically challenging. The opening Sinfonia makes a grand entrance into a song-like melody. Of course, a fugue soon follows, but being in only two-voices, it is hard to notice immediately. The following Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Rondeaux trade off between melancholic and lively, lyrical and energetic. The last dance is a Capriccio instead of a Gigue, as in the volume’s other five Suites. Its freer form provides an intense and directed end.

Completed in 1901, just after the turn of the century, Debussy’s Pour le Piano is a suite of three pieces, each with its own dedication and style. Although the impressionistic qualities of the composer’s later works is absent, the pieces require virtuosic talent to master. The Prelude enters with full speed and volume and barrels towards exotic rhythms and harmonies. The peaceful Sarabande provides a welcome rest between the Prelude and the intense Toccata, offering a moment to think and reflect. The Toccata is perhaps the most difficult of the three pieces, with fast figures rippling throughout in an undercurrent while a variety of melodies move above.

Luca Francesconi is an Italian composer born in Milan. He studied at the Milan Conservatory and participated in all aspects of music, including playing in jazz and rock bands and studying abroad at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Since then, Francesconi has composed works for full orchestra, small ensembles, and musical theater and has served as an artistic director, teacher, and collaborator. Here, the pianist will perform one of his commissioned works.

The lack of separation between movements in Liszt’s Sonata in B-minor gave rise to much controversy and criticism in 1853, when it was published. Today, the Sonata is the source of analysis and debate, not just for its interesting harmonies or techniques, but also for its possible symbols and meaning, with theories ranging from descriptions of the divine and diabolical to portraits of Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles from the Faust legend. Though in one movement, the Sonata follows sonata form, prompting biographer Alan Walker to call it a “sonata within a sonata.” Three of the five main themes are presented early in the first movement, providing a variety of material for the pianist, from descending scales to staccato octaves to smooth melodies. Even the finale provided controversy for Liszt, who had originally written a loud ending and crossed it out in favor of a quiet descent into silence. Throughout this thirty-minute composition, demanding passages continually test the pianist’s abilities.