Winner of the World Piano Competition held in London in 1997, the gifted young British pianist Ashley Wass has chosen a programme of music by César Franck for his début recital. Belgian by birth, French by adoption, Franck is now so well known in the field of symphonic and organ music that we tend to forget that his musical career began as a pianist.

Compositions from his student days were largely for that instrument, many in the style of showpieces, including the Premier Grand Caprice and the technically demanding, Églogue. He was to return to piano composition in the last few years of his life, but now the music was a piano extension of the works he had composed for organ. The Prélude, Choral et Fugue is one of the most imposing piano works of the late nineteenth century.