5/5. As Love Fades
Donald Macleod charts the final years of Chopin's career, in which he found himself without the incalculable support of his lover George Sand. It proved to be an eventful closing chapter, as witnessed by the mixed fortunes of a British concert tour, a brush with disaster in a road accident, and the eventual release brought by death after a life blighted by physical fragility.
Prelude No 20 in C minor
Maria Joao Pires (piano)
Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat, Op 61 Maurizio Pollini (piano)
Cello Sonata in G minor, Op 65 Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax (piano)
Ballade No 4 in F minor, Op 52
Stephen Hough (piano) Repeated on Thursday at 12 midnight