Dudok String Quartet -Stamford Arts Centre

 Saturday 4th March 2023

A varied programme, superbly performed and beautifully presented by a string quartet from Amsterdam.

The programme began with Mozart’s String Quartet in F major, K590. 

Then Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet in D major, Op 11. The 2nd movement is well-known and wonderful.

After the interval, they played Shostakovich’s String Quartet No 5 in B flat major.

My musical education and knowledge is pretty basic, but I loved this concert.

Castalian Quartet at Thurlby church

A longish drive - about 45 minutes each way, but well worth it for a magical evening.

A  brilliant concert at St Firmin's church, Thurlby, near Bourne. 

The first piece the Castalian Quartet played was Haydn's Quartet in D minor, op.76 no 2, a lively playful and very modern sounding piece.

This was followed by Janacek's  Kreutzer Sonata, and Britten's Quartet no 2 in C op.36.

Perfect surroundings, a light airy church, with the evening sunlight streaming through the clerestory windows. 

The organisers provided delicious refreshments in the interval, and there was a lovely atmosphere among the audience. 

It was still light as we left at about 9.30 pm.

More info about the church, and St Firmin:

http://www.greatenglishchurches.co.uk/html/thurlby.html

Thurlby 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurlby,_South_Kesteven

Benjamin Grosvenor - piano recital

I don't claim to be knowledgeable about music, or piano in particular, but Benjamin Grosvenor can play and then some.

More catching up Concert Feb 19th

Feb 19th we went to Stamford for a concert by Welsh harpist Catrin Finch, who played her own arrangement of Bach's Goldberg variations. The performance was excellent, although I don't think we needed the long introductory film about it - twenty minutes was too much - five would have been enough. She intended to play through without an interval, but towards the end a fire alarm interrupted and we had an enforced fresh-air break of about fifteen minutes.
Catrin seemed quite unphased by this, and managed to restore the magic.

Concert in Stamford

Yesterday we discovered that as part of Stamford Arts Centre's Classical music programme, there was a performance of Brahms, Robert and Clara Schumann's work. Performers were Ronan O'Hara (piano), Graham Oppenheimer (viola) and Julia Riley (mezzo soprano)

I was particularly taken by the songs - two were by Brahms - Op 91 Gestillte Sehnsucht, and Geistliches Wiegenlied. The second one uses the melody from the 14th century carol 'Joseph lieber, Joseph mein' as a recurrent theme.

Then there were six short but magical songs with music by Clara Schumann.

Apart from these Ronan O'Hara played Fantasy for solo piano by Robert Schumann, and the programme finished with Brahms Sonata in E flat for viola and piano.

Good to hear viola as a solo (?) intstrument.