David Owen Norris is one of Britain’s best-known pianists, renowned for his pioneering work in the historically informed performance on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pianos, often exploring neglected English music. He appears frequently on Radio and TV, most recently talking about ‘Jerusalem’ in the Prince of Wales’s documentary about Hubert Parry.

His recordings of Elgar, including the solo piano music and virtuoso transcriptions of orchestral music, have received enthusiastic reviews, as in The Gramophone (2009): ‘swaggering conviction, glinting mischief … once again, Norris’s pianism is past praise in its scrupulous poise, immaculate touch and attention to dynamic nuance. What’s more, he also displays an acute intellectual and emotional understanding … artistry of a very high order’.

David Owen Norris has devised this special programme to suit the historic late nineteenth-century Broadwood piano at St Mary’s Church in Boxford. It begins with the first book of Mendelssohn’s innovative Songs without Words op. 19, published in 1830, followed by the Klavierstücke (Six Piano Pieces) op. 118 by Brahms, completed in 1893 and including some of his best-loved shorter piano pieces. After the interval he plays William Sterndale Bennett’s extraordinary ‘Maid of Orleans’ Sonata op. 46 of 1873, based on Schiller’s play about Joan of Arc. The concert ends with the full original version of Elgar’s barnstorming Concert Allegro op. 46, written in 1901 and the composer’s only major solo piano work.