Ivan Horovun Recital
PITTVILLE PUMP ROOM
CHELTENHAM SPA
1 APRIL
2025
Today’s Artist
Ivan Hovorun was born in Ukraine, where his first piano teacher was his mother, a professional musician. He made his public debut at nine, played with an orchestra at 11, and has performed annually with the Lviv Symphony ever since. He came to the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester in 2004.
He has been taught by Howard Shelley, Barry Douglas, Stephen Hough, Charles Rosen, Peter Donohoe, Imogen Cooper, Stephen Kovacevich and many more. He has played with numerous orchestras and at festivals devoted to Scarlatti, Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Rachmaninov and Judith Weir. As a soloist he has played in Italy, London and Manchester as well as in Lincoln, Blackburn, Chichester, Ripon and Chichester cathedrals.
He performs the complete Études of Liszt, as well as programmes that compare and contrast works spanning the centuries. He has won numerous competitions and made recordings of Bach, Busoni, Mozart, Liszt, Scarlatti and Percy Grainger. His idol is Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924), who said ‘The function of the creative artist consists of making laws, not In following laws already made’.
Today’s Music
F. Liszt, Après une lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata (1849)
M. Ravel, Gaspard de la nuit (1907)
1. Ondine
2. Le Gibet
3. Scarbo
G. Fauré, Pavane in F-sharp minor, Op. 50 (1887)
Sicilienne, Op. 78 (1893)
A. Scriabin, Sonata No. 9, Op. 68 (1912–13)
Franz Liszt (1811– 1886) was a Hungarian composer and pianist, whose virtuosity and showmanship led to ‘Listztomania’, which was not invented by Ken Russell and Roger Daltry. The ‘Dante Sonata’ is a single movement piece whose two contrasting sections depict Hell and Heaven. Purgatory was purged.
Gaspard de la nuit means ‘treasurer of the night’ and refers to The Devil. Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) wanted its final movement to be a devil to play: ‘I intended to make a caricature of romanticism. Perhaps it got the better of me.’
Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) named his Pavane after the slow processional dance of the Spanish court. He said it was ‘elegant, assuredly, but not particularly important’. Sicilienne is from his incidental music for a production of Molière’s comedy Le bourgeois gentilhomme that failed to raise a laugh and duly failed.
Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915) was a Russian composer and pianist, both mystical and experimental. This piece was nicknamed the ‘Black Mass Sonata’ and he didn’t mind at all. It is built around the dissonant interval of the minor ninth, which is indeed scary.
April Fools’ Day
1 April is April Fool’s Day. It arrived in England from the Continent in the 17th Century, and allowed adults to send each other on futile errands or tell amusing lies. Warning: anyone attempting to fool someone after midday becomes the fool. You are safe now. April Fools (hoaxes) have become a tedious media ritual, but a fake BBC TV news item in 1957, showing spaghetti being harvested from trees, was widely believed. It caused considerable outrage, because most people had only ever seen spaghetti in tins after it was dug up.
Morris Men (1688), with hankies.
Cheltenham Music Festival Society
Since 2017, Cheltenham Music Festival Society has presented more than 180 Young Musician Concerts for young people to perform solo or in school groups. At 1pm on Tuesdays, the concerts are free, with a voluntary collection at the end to pay for the venue and the expenses of some of the performers. For more details, contact Andrew Auster: a.auster30@gmail.com.
FORTHCOMING ATTRACTIONS
29 April Alice Barron Quartet
6 May Adam Heron (piano)
13 May Alexander Dorovin (piano)
20 May Cheltenham Ladies’ College
3 June Bournside School
10 June Tsukushi Mitsuda (piano)
17 June Cheltenham College
24th June Vitaly Piserenko (piano)
Cover montage uses a portrait by Elina Askelrud and a detail from one of my photographs: Avoiding Paying To Enter Sudeley Castle, 28 April 2023. Inside photograph also by Elina.
What’s wrong with Ivan’s chair?
Contact me at 2 Priory Mews, Sidney Street, Cheltenham GL52 6DJ, mail@johnmorrish.com or +44 77 88 515387.
https://johnmorrish.com/hovorun/ or the QR.
A John Morrish production