Turbulent Quartets Pre-Concert Talk-Wilton’s Music Hall-13th December 2009 Schubert’s friend Eduard Bauernfeld noted: “Schubert has the right blend of the ideal and the real; for him, the world is beautiful.” (3 March 1826, in Franz Schubert, Music and…
One promise too many Beethoven had little time for Polonaises, and rejected the craze for this dance which swept through Vienna at the time of the 1815 Congress. The most feted composer of this craze was the unjustly forgotten Josep…
Much practice is done away from the violin, and much of it does not lead anywhere. I am not ashamed to admit that I am passionate about the Nielsen Sonatas, bu every time I consider playing them, I am humbled…
Bach-Beethoven-Mendelssohn-David Matthews Extract from pre-concert talk given at Wilton’s Music Hall, Spring 2009 The unifying figure behind all of the composers that we are playing today is, of course, Johann Sebastian Bach. All three of them arranged Bach’s music, and…
Poet Louise Vale responds to the enchanted spaces of Wilton’s Music Hall. As It Was [Fuse the future with a version of the past. Take up your opera glasses, breathe into former pleasures, remember someone else’s bliss] …
With John MCabe-Burgh House, 2007 On the 15th June 2011, the Kreutzers will premiere John McCabe’s new Clarinet Quintet with Linda Merrick at the Royal Northern College of Music. This will be followed by further performances and a recording. John…
Click on Paganini and Eliasson Preparations for Paganini’s Arrival in London-1831 (10-12-09) “For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Not harsh nor…
Working with young bassists at the Carl Nielsen Conservatory, Odense. Photo Richard Bram
Studying Jeremy Dale Robert’s Croquis was a turning point for us all. It also gave us all pause-how can an absolute masterwork, be totally neglected for almost thirty years? Playing it, we had to consider our relationship to Watteau, Bartok,…
Discussion continues within the Quartet as to where Schubert’s crazy late violin writing comes from. Imagine him handing the last movement of the G major Quartet to his violinist brother Ferdinand. One supposes that the initial reaction would have…