Recent Concerts

The BELCEA QUARTET

Beethoven, Quartet in B flat, Op. 18, no. 6
Beethoven, Quartet in F minor, Op. 95
Beethoven, Quartet in E flat, Op. 127

The Belcea Quartet has gained an enviable reputation as one of the leading quartets of the new generation. They continue to take the British and international chamber music circuit by storm, consistently receiving critical acclaim for their performances. The Quartet was established at the Royal College of Music in 1994 and has since been coached by the Chilingirian, Amadeus and Alban Berg Quartets. They are the Associate Ensemble at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and are Quartet in Residence at the Atheneum Concert Hall in Bucharest.

The Belcea Quartet has an exclusive recording contract with EMI Classics and won the Gramophone Award for best debut recording in 2001. Subsequent recordings for EMI include Schubert quartets, Brahms' String Quartet Op. 51 No. 1 and second String Quintet with Thomas Kakuska, Fauré's La Bonne Chanson with Ian Bostridge, Schubert's Trout Quintet with Thomas Adès and Corin Long, a double disc of Britten's string quartets, Mozart's "Dissonance" and "Hoffmeister" quartets, and, most recently, the complete Bartók quartets, for which the Quartet was awarded the title Chamber Music Ensemble of the Year by Germany's prestigious Echo Klassik Awards and nominated for a 2008 Gramophone Award.

The Belcea Quartet's international engagements regularly take them to the Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Brussels' Palais des Beaux Arts, Lisbon's Gulbenkian, Zurich's Tonhalle, Stockholm's Konzerthuset, Paris' Chatelet and Opera Bastille, Milan's Sala Verdi, New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and San Francisco's Herbst Theatre, and to festivals including Luberon, Istanbul, Trondheim, Lausanne, Salzburg, Mecklenburg, and the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade.

In the UK they regularly appear at the Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Perth, Bath and Cheltenham festivals, and at the Wigmore Hall where they were resident Quartet from 2001 to 2006.

They regularly work with leading instrumentalists including Thomas Adès, Isabelle van Keulen, Michael Collins, Paul Lewis, Imogen Cooper, Yovan Markovitch, Natalie Clein, Piotr Anderszewski and Valentin Erben. Recent collaborations with singers have included performances of Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Ann Murray and Simon Keenlyside; Schoenberg's String Quartet no.2 and a new commission by Joseph Phibbs for string quartet and voice with Lisa Milne at Wigmore Hall; Fauré's La Bonne Chanson with Anne Sofie von Otter at the Cité de la Musique, Paris, Respighi's Il Tramonto with Angelika Kirchschlager at the Langeland Festival and with Ian Bostridge at New York's Zankel Hall and Washington's Library of Congress.

SIMON TRPČESKI piano

Chopin, Nocturne in B major, Op 32 no. 1
Chopin, Nocturne in A flat, Op. 32 no 2
Chopin, Nocturne in F sharp minor, Op. 48 no. 2
Chopin, Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48 no.1
Pande Shahov, Songs and Whispers-suite for piano
Bach-Liszt, Organ Prelude and Fugue in A-Minor
Liszt, Sonet Petrarque 104
Liszt, Jeux d’eau de la Villa d’Este
Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2

With the ability to perform a diverse range of repertoire - from Haydn and Chopin to Debussy and Stravinsky - Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski has established himself as one of the most remarkable young musicians to have emerged in recent years, performing with many of the world's greatest orchestras and captivating audiences worldwide. Mr. Trpceski is praised not only for his impeccable technique and delicate expression, but also for his warm personality and commitment to strengthening Macedonia's cultural image. The New York Times' Anthony Tommasini praises Trpceski's dazzling musicianship, saying "He tore through the double-octave outbursts with arm-blurring speed and no sense of strain. Yet in tenderly lyrical moments he caressed the phrases, playing with naturalness, never milking anything."

Mr. Trpceski has appeared with many of the world's finest orchestras. In North America, he has performed with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, The Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, the Pittsburgh and San Francisco Symphony orchestras and the Chicago, Toronto and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, among others. In the United Kingdom, he is a frequent soloist with the London and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, the Philharmonia and Halle Orchestras and the London Philharmonic. Other engagements with major European ensembles include the Royal Concertgebouw, Russian National and Bolshoi Theatre Orchestras, NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Rotterdam, Strasbourg, Royal Stockholm, Royal Flanders and St. Petersburg Philharmonics. In Asia he has performed with the New Japan, Seoul and Hong Kong Philharmonics. In Australia he has been featured with the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, and has toured with the New Zealand Symphony. Mr. Trpceski has worked with a prominent list of conductors, including Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Andrew Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Vladimir Jurowski, Lorin Maazel, Gianandrea Noseda, Antonio Pappano, Vasily Petrenko, Yan Pascal Tortelier and David Zinman.

MENAHEM PRESSLER piano

Beethoven, Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
Debussy, Estampes
Schubert, Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960

Menahem Pressler, founding member and pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio, has established himself among the world's most distinguished and honored musicians, with a career that spans over five decades. Now in his 87th year, he continues to captivate audiences throughout the world as performer and pedagogue, performing solo and chamber music recitals to great critical acclaim while maintaining a dedicated and robust teaching career.

Born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1923, Pressler fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and emigrated to Israel. Pressler's world renowned career was launched after he was awarded first prize at the Debussy International Piano Competition in San Francisco in 1946. This was followed by his successful American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Eugene Ormandy. Since then, Pressler's extensive tours of North America and Europe have included performances with the orchestras of New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Francisco, London, Paris, Brussels, Oslo, Helsinki and many others.

After nearly a decade of an illustrious and praised solo career, the 1955 Berkshire Music Festival saw Menahem Pressler's debut as a chamber musician, where he appeared as pianist with the Beaux Arts Trio. This collaboration quickly established Pressler's reputation as one of the world's most revered chamber musicians. With Pressler at the Trio's helm as the only pianist for nearly 55 years, The New York Times described the Beaux Arts Trio as "in a class by itself" and the Washington Post exclaimed that "since its founding more than 50 years ago, the Beaux Arts Trio has become the gold standard for trios throughout the world." The 2007-2008 season was nothing short of bitter-sweet, as violinist Daniel Hope, cellist Antonio Meneses and Menahem Pressler took their final bows as The Beaux Arts Trio, which marked the end of one of the most celebrated and revered chamber music careers of all time. What saw the end of a one artistic legacy also witnessed the beginning of another, as Pressler continues to dazzle audiences throughout the world, both as piano soloist and collaborating chamber musician, including performances with the Juilliard, Emerson, American, and Cleveland Quartets, among many others.

Dame Mitsuko Uchida, piano

This concert was generously supported by Mrs Nancy Irsay

Schubert, Sonata in C minor, D. 958
Schubert, Sonata in A, D. 959

Online booking »

Mitsuko Uchida is a performer who brings a deep insight into the music she plays through her own search for truth and beauty. She is renowned for her interpretations of Mozart and Schubert, both in the concert hall and on CD, but she has also illuminated the music of Berg, Schönberg, Webern and Boulez for a new generation of listeners, and her recording of the Schönberg Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra won four awards, including The Gramophone Award for Best Concerto. During recent seasons she has been giving performances of Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas, and Opus 101 and 106 (Hammerklavier). Her Royal Festival Hall performance of Op109, 110 and 111 was described by John Allison, The Times critic, as ‘one of the most transporting concerts London has heard all year’. Her recording of Beethoven’s Op101 and Op106 was described by Michael Church in BBC Music Magazine as ‘Beethoven in all his grandeur and with all his capacity to express spiritual agony (the slow movement) and heroic struggle and triumph (the first and last movement) revealed with shattering directness ….This disc is of a calibre that I count myself lucky to encounter once in a decade.’ Uchida recently won BBC Music Magazine’s award for ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ and ‘Disc of the Year’ for this recording.

ALFRED BRENDEL, VISITING FELLOW OF PETERHOUSE, LECTURED IN CAMBRIDGE IN MAY 2011

During Professor Brendel's residency as Visiting Fellow, he delivered two lectures and held an open rehearsal - all at the West Road Concert Hall, Faculty of Music, Cambridge. The arrangements for the events were as follows:

Brendel Lecture 1: On Character in Music

Friday 13 May 2011, West Road Concert Hall, 5 pm

Brendel Lecture 2: Light and Shade of Interpretation

Monday 16 May 2011, West Road Concert Hall, 5 pm

Open Rehearsal

The Szymanowski Quartet and Alfred Brendel discuss Beethoven's Quartet in A minor, op. 132. Tuesday 17 May 2011, West Road Concert Hall, 2-5 pm

Concert by the Szymanowski Quartet

Programme: Szymanowski, Quartet no. 2, Op. 56, and Beethoven, Quartet in A minor, Op. 132

Wednesday 18 May 2011, West Road Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

VIKTORIA MULLOVA, violin
KRISTIAN BEZUIDENHOUT, fortepiano

This concert was generously supported by Mr Dilip Chandra

Beethoven, Sonata for violin and piano in E flat major, Op. 12, no. 2
Beethoven, Sonata for violin and piano in A 'Kreutzer', Op. 47
Schubert, Fantasie for violin and piano in C major, D. 934

Viktoria Mullova studied at the Central Music School of Moscow and the Moscow Conservatoire. Her extraordinary talent captured international attention when she won first prize at the 1980 Sibelius Competition in Helsinki and the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1982 which was followed, in 1983, by her dramatic and much publicized defection to the West. She has since appeared with most of the world's greatest orchestras and conductors and at the major international festivals. She is now known the world over as a violinist of exceptional versatility and musical integrity. Her curiosity spans the breadth of musical development from baroque and classical right up to the most contemporary influences from the world of fusion and experimental music.

Her interest in the authentic approach has led to collaborations with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Il Giardino Armonico, Venice Baroque and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. She has a close association with harpsichordist Ottavio Dantone with whom she tours and which led Tim Ashley to write, “To hear Mullova play Bach is, simply, one of the greatest things you can experience…” in The Guardian. Her most recent recording of Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas represents a significant milestone in Viktoria’s personal journey into this music. The recording has received 5-star reviews from all over the world and she is embarking on an international, several season-long, series of solo Bach recitals.

PIOTR ANDERSZEWSKI, piano

Bach, English Suite No 5 in E minor, BWV 810
Schumann, Six Etudes in Canonic Form, Op. 56
Schumann, Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 113
Bach, English suite No 6 in D, BWV 811

Piotr Anderszewski is regarded as one of the outstanding musicians of his generation.

In recent seasons he has given recitals at London's Royal Festival Hall, the Wiener Konzerthaus, Carnegie Hall New York, the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St Petersburg and Munich's Herkulessaal. His collaborations with orchestra have included appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston, Chicago and London Symphony orchestras, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Royal Concertgebouw.

Anderszewski has performed with many of the world's major conductors including Claudio Abbado, John Eliot Gardiner, Bernard Haitink and Charles Dutoit. He also works regularly with members of the newer generation of conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Stéphane Denève and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

THE BELCEA QUARTET

Corina Belcea-Fisher, violin
Axel Schacher, violin
Krzysztof Chorzelski, viola
Antoine Lederlin, 'cello

Haydn, String Quartet in G, Op. 77, no. 1
Beethoven, Grosse Fuge, Op. 133
Beethoven, String Quartet in F, Op. 59, no. 1 'Razumovsky'

The Belcea Quartet has gained an enviable reputation as one of the leading quartets of the new generation. They continue to take the British and international chamber music circuit by storm, consistently receiving critical acclaim for their performances. The Quartet was established at the Royal College of Music in 1994 and has since been coached by the Chilingirian, Amadeus and Alban Berg Quartets. They are the Associate Ensemble at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and are Quartet in Residence at the Atheneum Concert Hall in Bucharest.

The Belcea Quartet has an exclusive recording contract with EMI Classics and won the Gramophone Award for best debut recording in 2001. Subsequent recordings for EMI include Schubert quartets, Brahms' String Quartet Op. 51 No. 1 and second String Quintet with Thomas Kakuska, Fauré's La Bonne Chanson with Ian Bostridge, Schubert's Trout Quintet with Thomas Adès and Corin Long, a double disc of Britten's string quartets, Mozart's “Dissonance” and “Hoffmeister” quartets, and, most recently, the complete Bartók quartets, for which the Quartet was awarded the title Chamber Music Ensemble of the Year by Germany's prestigious Echo Klassik Awards and nominated for a 2008 Gramophone Award.

PINCHAS ZUKERMAN, violin
and the Zukerman Chamber Players

Pinchas Zukerman, violin
Jessica Linnebach, violin
Jethro Marks, viola
Ashan Pillai, viola
Amanda Forsyth, cello
Sadao Harada, cello

Boccherini, Cello Quintet in C major, G. 378
Mozart, String Quintet in C major, K. 515
Brahms, String Sextet in G major, Op. 36

Pinchas Zukerman is one of the most celebrated musicians in the world today, the winner of two Grammy Awards and a nominee for a further twenty-one.

For his European tour in February-March 2010, he appears with the Zukerman Chamber Players, which he founded in 2003, and which is composed of some of the world's most distinguished soloists. The ensemble for 1 March will include the cellist Sadao Harada (a founding member of internationally acclaimed Tokyo String Quartet).

Johannes Moser, 'cello
Paul Rivinius, piano

Beethoven, Cello Sonata in C, Op. 102/1
Britten, Cello Sonata in C, Op. 65
Brahms, Cello Sonata in E minor, Op. 39

German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser has been hailed by Gramophone Magazine as 'one of the finest among the astonishing gallery of young virtuoso cellists.' He has performed with many of the world's leading orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony, Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Israel Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony. He works regularly with conductors of the highest level including Riccardo Muti, Lorin Maazel, Valery Gergiev, Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Jurowski, Franz Welser-Möst, Christian Thielemann, Pierre Boulez, Neeme Jarvi and Paavo Jarvi.

Christopher Maltman, baritone
Graham Johnson, piano

Schubert, Winterreise, D. 911

Winner of the Lieder Prize at the 1997 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, Christopher Maltman recently made an acclaimed debut at the Salzburg Festival in the title role of Don Giovanni. He is a regular guest at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden where he has sung Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Ramiro (L'heure espagnole), Malatesta (Don Pasquale) and he created the role of Sebastian in the world premiere of Thomas Adès' 'The Tempest'.

Graham Johnson is recognised as one of the world's leading vocal accompanists. Born in Rhodesia, he came to London to study in 1967. After leaving the Royal Academy of Music his teachers included Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons. In 1972 he was the official pianist at Peter Pears' first masterclasses at The Maltings, Snape which brought him into contact with Benjamin Britten - a link which strengthened his determination to accompany.

Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet

Mozart, Piano Quartet in G minor, K. 478
Schumann, Piano Quartet in E flat, Op. 47
Brahms, Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25

The Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet, among the few permanent ensembles in this formation, has existed as a chamber-music association of the Berliner Philharmoniker since 1985. Its comprehensive repertoire includes a number of significant compositions which are otherwise seldom heard in concert. Along with the Classical, Romantic and classic modern literature, the Philharmonic Piano Quartet consistently programmes music by contemporary composers, works which not infrequently are also dedicated to the ensemble.

Florestan Trio

Beethoven, Trio in G, Op. 1, no. 2
Haydn, Trio in C, Hob. XV/27
Mendelssohn, Trio in D minor, Op. 46

Florestan is one of the world's leading piano trios. The group stands in the great European tradition of chamber music playing which aims to make the expressive purpose of every detail understood, like the words in a sentence or paragraph - to make the music 'speak'. This approach was epitomised by the violinist Sandor Végh, by whom all three players were taught. In 2000 the Trio was honoured to receive Britain's Royal Philharmonic Society Award for chamber music - the first time this has been given to a piano trio.