Classical Piano Recital in Nantwich!
- Jack Mitchell Smith
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
OK - at the risk of sounding like I am a highly successful touring pianist with a big following, I would like to add the following disclaimer:
I very much enjoy performing at care homes, retirement homes and retirement villages and Richmond Villages in Nantwich is a prime example of the latter!
On the evening of Wednesday 4th June 2025, I arrived to perform for the lovely residents - many of whom I have performed for before - and they have one simple request for me when I come to play: they love classical music!
This is in contrast to other places where I perform. Depending on the nature of who I perform for, many care homes are glad of a pianist to come along and simply bring them all together in a good old sing song. But not at Richmond Villages! And I love it! It gives me excuses other than for my own personal gain to keep focusing on learning new pieces of classical music and opportunities to perform them / trial them on people whereas I might ordinarily only ever play them for myself (or upload them onto YouTube hoping a very niche audience might stumble across them!).
More excitingly still, I have recently acquired a new microphone (a USB-C one that plugs into my phone and everything!) - so now I can take the usual videos but with enhanced sound quality (disclaimer: I haven’t yet mastered how to gauge the volume going in - some of the loud notes clip!), so I’m very excited to share with you excerpts from my classical piano recital in Nantwich!
Classical Piano Recital in Nantwich: The Set
The first few pieces of music I performed were ones I didn’t record, partly because of how short and incidental they were but partly because I wasn’t quite yet feeling the vibe of hitting that record button! -
Edward Elgar: Sonatina in G Major (ii Allegro) - Ordinarily I opt to begin with something a bit gentler to break myself in gently to playing quicker pieces requiring greater agility, however to partly challenge myself but also to see if it made a difference psychologically, I chose this piece by Elgar. It lasts just shy of two minutes but is a great finger warm up and it did in fact allow me to feel more comfortable moving forward. So lesson learned: don’t build up complexity / fiddli-ness from beginning to end!
George Frideric Handel: Entrée in G Minor - I like to get the Baroque era out of the way earlier on, usually, as it highlights very nicely a progression through musical styles that can often be seen as it little anticlimactic if interspersed with more grandiose pieces from the classical and romantic eras. This was a lovely piece to get out of my system, having only recently learnt it. Short and sweet, like the next one!
George Frideric Handel: Passacaglia in A Minor - I did ask if any of the residents had previously played or learnt piano and upon learning that some of them did, assured them that they may well recognise this piece and may well have even played it themselves! With the modern complexities of the piano as an instrument, this is one baroque piece that is very easy to ‘romanc-ify’ due to the dynamic range and the sustain pedal, and I did forewarn the audience that my interpretation would not be an accurate Baroque one. That said, I don’t think I’ve heard all that many accurate Baroque interpretations of this particular piece anyway
Lights…Camera…
Franz Schubert: Impromptu in B♭ Major - If I weren’t destined to press record at this stage, it would never have happened. This piece clocks in at approximately 14 minutes (11 if I’m in a rush!), and is a simple theme and variations structure i.e. we are introduced to a theme, then a separate variation of the theme, then another, another, another and a final one - each one becoming a tad more complex. The classic variations are incorporated (one changes tone to minor, for example, as well as the time signature), but this is the latest full showpiece I have been working on and it was wonderful to finally get it out of my system!
Sergei Bortkiewicz: Prelude V - A few months ago I was asked by an old friend to learn some music to perform at his wedding (coming up in July). This is one of the pieces, as is the following. It seemed daft to not use the opportunity to perform them elsewhere as well, so that’s exactly what I did! A beautiful prelude in A♭ and one that I read my way through as it isn’t quite fully in the old brain yet!
Anton Dvořák: Poetic Tones, Serenade - Perhaps a more familiar composer thanks to the ‘New World Symphony’, this piece is great fun to play and not too taxing (although you wouldn’t think so, looking at the accidental-littered score!).
Edvard Grieg: Arietta (from Lyric Pieces) - for reasons I can’t quite recall, I didn’t record this one. This is a terrible shame, as I performed this one arguably better than the next one. But this is the opening piece of the entire suite of Lyric Pieces (Lyrische Stücke) by Grieg - a composer I am particularly fond of for his ability to weave the feeling of fantasy and magic into his music (I mean - he did compose Peer Gynt…)
Edvard Grieg: Waltz (from Lyric Pieces) - and the second piece! Ironically for the easiest piece I was playing today it was also the one that went most badly, so this should be reassuring to anybody who is worried about making mistakes. Watch the video and see if you can spot them - if you can’t then that’s great, it just shows how the art of carrying on overpowers them. If you can, same principle: you’ll notice that they don’t dominate the overall performance!
Edvard Grieg: Watchman’s Song (from Lyric Pieces) - and the third piece! Beautiful music that was especially marked upon by the residents as being so. The intermezzo here is very exciting (‘Geister Der Nacht’), and special thank you for the lorry’s extraordinary musicality as he is able to blast his horn right on the onset of a musical silence. Still, the overall performance was very enjoyable and very well received!
Edward Elgar: Salut d’Amour (Love’s Greeting) - upon completion of the first piece, I did threaten the residents that that would not be the last they would be hearing of Elgar tonight. However, this piece is much more well known and not typically a piano piece. However, I left them with this delightful piano rendition and they loved it!
Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Congleton, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.
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