“The Haydn’s bonkers,” said Edward Keenan, the viola player in The Brompton Quartet. And he was right. The playful, agitated, quizzical, quirky questioning of the opening phrases of Haydn’s String Quartet in C major set the pattern for the music that followed, uncertain, fragmentary, teasing but taking us on a journey that led to the […]
The violin and guitar are complementary instruments. The violinist bows the melody, flowing, resonant, singing, with a powerful voice. The guitarist plucks the harmony, rhythmic, complex, with an intimate, thoughtful voice Harriet Mackenzie was statuesque, every inch a classical virtuoso in her elegant dress. James Boyd seemed, in all aspects, a folk guitarist, until his
Four trumpeters – Jo Harris, Emma Bassett, Clara Hyder and Emily Ashby – and on stage ten, perhaps a dozen trumpets – in C, in B flat, bass trumpets and piccolo trumpets and even a flugel horn and mutes of all shapes and sizes. And with all this plumbing we were taken on a world
March 14th 2023 Theatre by the Lake Review by Steve Matthews of Bella Tromba Read More »
Tonight, the famous Primrose Quartet became the Primrose Trio. However, first it was minus two. They were reduced to Susanne Stanzeleit on violin and Andrew Fuller on cello, but they were playing a remarkable display piece by the Norwegian composer, Johan Halvorsen. He had rewritten Handel’s dazzling harpsichord Passacaglia for the two instruments, and it
Two brothers, both in black, sitting with their backs to each other: one, Thomas Scott, at the keyboard of the Steinway grand with the lid defiantly open, and the other, Jonathan, almost hidden from view, commanding the magnificent Harrison organ with its two keyboards, its array of pedals, its fifteen stops and its towering assemblage
Three centuries, three countries, three composers and three performers playing three piano trios. Haydn’s last piano trio was written in Vienna when he was 64 in 1796. Faure was 78 and living in Paris when he composed his only piano trio in 1923 and in 1847, Schumann was 43 and, newly returned to Dresden, was
Keswick Music Society: The Odysseus Trio at St John’s Church. Read More »
A Night of Celebrations A large, and entranced, audience, went to listen to Keswick Music Society’s presentation of Wild Art’s Opera Evening at the Theatre on the Lake on Saturday. Wild Art’s opening concert for the season, this was also their ‘First Night’ to celebrate the glad news received, just two days earlier, that the
An Opera Evening by Wild Arts Read More »
On Saturday March 5th, an enthusiastic audience came to listen to Keswick Music Society’s first concert of their Spring 2022 programme at St. John’s Church. Sophie Rosa, violin, and Ian Buckle, piano, are young and dynamic players based in Manchester. Both have varied and distinguished careers as soloists and chamber musicians, and they offered a
Sophie Rosa and Ian Buckle Read More »
The centrepiece of the concert was Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 3 which was first performed just after the composer’s death in 1976. Hearing a live chamber music performance again after so long was as emotional as it was therapeutic; this programme was chillingly appropriate in view of the pandemic we are enduring. Cellist Felix
Review of Elmore Quartet Concert by John Hughes Read More »
A happy and enthusiastic audience of members of Keswick Music Society and friends gathered at St. John’s Church Keswick on Saturday evening for their first live post-Covid concert. Ever since lockdown in 2020 brought an end to that concert season, various attempts to arrange concerts had been made, only to be overtaken by spikes of
