As we flick through a piece we’re busily learning, we easily become distracted by the score’s trickier, more involved looking passages and perhaps less concerned with how the music starts and ends. But for the listener, how these bars are played can be so important, both emotionally and structurally. Composers give much thought to how their music majestically springs to life (for example, Grieg’s Piano Concerto) or else meanders more intriguingly into existence as if from a thought that was already planted in our minds (like Chopin’s Prélude in E minor). At least as much consideration is given to how best the music should wind up – whether enigmatically, such as Satie’s No 1, or emphatically at the end of a sprawling, tumultuous journey, like Beethoven’s Sonata Op 110. For the pianist, these are defining moments in a piece, opportunities first to ignite the imagination, then to leave a profound thought lingering in the listener’s mind. Consider George Orwell’s
