Pianists in Diamond: Kyohei Sorita (JP)

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Kyohei Sorita is not just one of Japan's most acclaimed pianists, he is also the founder of the Japan National Orchestra, runs his own record label, and has launched the music salon Solistiade to foster connections between young musicians and music lovers.

His initiative led Forbes to recognize him as one of Asia's most influential people under 30 in 2024. He is not only an active entrepreneur – his energy also shines through on stage. Now he takes the stage at the Queen’s Hall.

Sorita opens the concert with Mozart's third sonata. Mozart was only 18 years old and had returned to his birthplace of Salzburg after a trip with his father the year before; Wolfgang was looking for a new job. In a sense, the journey was a failure. There was no shortage of applause and acclaim, but no permanent appointment was in sight, and he had to return home disappointed. Yet it resulted in one of the most virtuosic sonatas. Perhaps he wrote his way out of the disappointment.

Next comes Brahms's beautiful and melancholic Drei Intermezzi, Op. 117 from 1892. He himself called them "three lullabies for my sorrows", and they made his friend and colleague Clara Schumann exclaim that "In these pieces I finally feel that musical life is stirring in my soul again".

This is followed by Liszt's introspective and profound piano cycle Harmonies poétiques et réligieuses, after the break concluding with Beethoven's legendary Hammerklavier Sonata – the longest, the most difficult, "the sonata of all sonatas".