The Piano Man

With childhood abuse, drug addiction and suicide attempts behind him, James is not your typical concert pianist. But with his passion and rock-star aura, he's bringing new audiences to classical piano.

In Piano Man, James plays the music of his favourite composers, including Bach, Beethoven and Chopin, many of whom have had, like James, troubled lives. In this highly personal collection, James explains how they've given him solace in his darkest moments, and why we should all be listening. With stunning solo piano performances and witty insight into the lives of James's favourites, Piano Man is an exciting and radical new approach to classical music.

Episode 1 - Beethoven: Waldstein
James plays Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, the "Waldstein", written soon after the composer had emerged from depression after realising he was incurably deaf.

Episode 2 - Chopin
James plays three pieces by the composer he has the most affinity with: Frederic Chopin. He performs the monstrously difficult Etude Op. 25 No. 12, and the sublimely beautiful Prelude, Op.
28 No. 4, followed by the turbulent Fantaisie in F minor, written at the height of Chopin's love affair with George Sand - a dysfunctional relationship James can relate to.

Episode 3 - Bach-Busoni
James plays the magnificent and fiendishly difficult Toccata, Adagio & Fugue in C major, written
for the organ by JS Bach and transcribed for the piano 200 years later by virtuoso Ferrucio
Busoni.

Episode 4 - Uppers & Downers
James plays his favourite mood-enhancing pieces - whether "musical valium" or "caffeine for the soul". They include the "wrist-breaking" In the Hall of the Mountain King, transcribed for the piano by Ginzburg from the original Grieg, and the exquisite Bach-Marcello Adagio in D minor, a piece James associates with his own recovery from mental breakdown.

Episode 5 - Mad, Bad & Sad
James plays his favourite pieces from three composers with whom he identifies due to their obsessive, depressive and insular qualities. They were all extraordinary pianists and each composition sets a different challenge for James. In Rachmaninov's Prelude in C Sharp Minor, the chords spread across 4 staves. In Ravel's Toccata from Tombeau de Couperin James has to
play 20 or 30 notes per second, and in Debussy's Clair de Lune from the Suite Bergamasque,
James has to play the piano as if it's an "instrument without hammers."

Episode 6 - Bach
James plays Bach's French Suite No 5 in G which he sees as a love letter to Bach's second wife, a singer seventeen years his junior who bore him thirteen children. This is one of Bach's most accessible works and reveals a joyful, romantic side to the composer who is more often seen as an austere, God-fearing Lutheran.

Episode 7 - Beethoven
James plays Piano Sonata 30 in E Major - written at the end of Beethoven's life when he was profoundly deaf and very isolated. James describes the first movement as "like something out of a Hitchcock movie" and the last movement as of "such unimaginable beauty, it takes your breath away".

PG Contains coarse language