A concert featuring Frédéric Chopin’s original Pleyel piano from 1847 piano and the premiere of Nikolai Vukovic’s Piano Concerto will be held on Sunday at 5pm at the Manoel Theatre, Valletta.

This will be a rare opportunity to hear one of only three pianos in the world touched by the great composer that are still playable. The piano’s mechanism has been meticulously restored and, for this concert, will be tuned in the same manner recommended by the maker (Pleyel) in Chopin’s days, not like a modern piano is tuned.

Two formations of the Pleyel Sextet, comprising a total of eight musicians, will be performing. Pianist-composer Vuković and Monika Kammerlander, ex-leader of the Mozarteum Orchestra, Salzburg, accompanied by musicians from the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra will perform some of Chopin’s greatest masterpieces in the first part of the concert.

The opening work will be the Grande Polonaise Brillante Op. 22 arranged for piano and string quintet by Vuković, specifically for this concert. The Romance (Larghetto) from the first Piano Concerto Op. 11 arranged for sextet by R. Hofmann will then follow.

A beautiful but relatively unknown masterpiece entitled Allegro de Concert Op. 46 was published as a solo piece for piano, based on a sketch that Chopin had made for a third concerto, exhibiting sections which were meant to be played by orchestra and others for piano. The exclusive première of an arrangement for piano and string quintet that Vuković made of this masterwork will close the concert’s first part.

The final major highlight is Vuković’s own Piano Concerto in B-flat major Op. 6 which will be premiered in the second part of the concert on another historic piano. This is one of Vuković’s latest works and his finest large-scale orchestral composition. The concerto is scored for piano and orchestra, but has been arranged for piano, string trio, clarinet and French horn for this concert.

Bookings can be made through teatrumanoel.com.mt or at the booking office.