PIANIST Helen Reid makes a return visit to Derby Chamber Music next Friday, with a typically interesting and varied programme.

She begins with the joker in the pack of early 20th-century French music, Erik Satie.

At least, that's the aspect of his work that dominates his reputation.

But in Helen Reid's chosen pieces he is at his least jokey. Gnossienne No 1 is one of his evocations of ancient Greece, and the first two of his Nocturnes are both calm and lyrical.

Oliver Knussen is one of today's leading British composers.

He wrote Sonya's Lullaby originally in 1977, when his daughter was, as he put it, "a four-month-old insomniac". This magical piece is full of gentle rocking figures and soft bell-like sounds.

The sixth of Fauré's 13 Nocturnes is one of his greatest single piano pieces. From a quiet opening it builds to a powerful climax, but also includes a moment of magical song-like ecstasy.

JS Bach's Partita No 1 is the first of six that, according to Bach's first biographer "made in its time a great noise in the musical world. Such excellent compositions for the clavier had never been seen or heard before".

Bach follows the conventions of his day by stringing together a sequence of dance pieces – in turn fast, slow, elegant and lively.

Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C, Op 2 No. 3 is one of the first set of sonatas he published, in 1796.

Crisp, humorous and full of surprises, it's the work of a Beethoven who is still shaking off his elegant 18th-century manners, but there are plenty of signs of the composer to come.

From the perkiness of the young Beethoven we turn to the introspection of Brahms's last years for the final work in Helen Reid's programme, his set of four Piano Pieces, Op 119.

The first piece is so wistful and delicate you hardly dare breathe.

With each piece that follows the energy level starts to rise, until we get to the last of the four – a robust and vigorous ending to Brahms's final published group of piano pieces.

WHAT: Derby Chamber Music – Helen Reid, piano

WHERE: Multi-Faith Centre, The University of Derby, Kedleston Road, Derby

WHEN: Friday, February 17, at 7.30pm

TICKETS: £12, concessions £6, school students under 16 free, on the door

FURTHER DETAILS: 01332 830585