Autumn is in the air and so the Beverley Chamber Music Festival – our annual autumnal feast of chamber music and song – is just around the corner. Opening in three weeks, this year’s festival features some of the great tunes in all music:
- Beethoven’s Archduke Trio with its serene, sublime slow movement, performed for us by The Roscoe Trio.
- Beethoven’s Spring Sonata with its evocative, effervescent opening, in which Martin Roscoe is joined by violinist Sophie Rosa, making her debut in Beverley.
Also appearing at the festival for the first time is soprano Ailish Tynan, winner of the song prize at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2003. Her recital with Libby Burgess, ‘All the Lights of this World‘ is replete with gorgeous tunes, including:
- Grieg’s ravishing Six Songs Op 48, ending in rapture with Ein Traum,
- Three songs of love and loss by Strauss including Die Nacht, a nocturnal masterpiece – not to be missed.
More! More! More!
Vogue!
The market town of Beverley is nestled in the Yorkshire Wolds. Locals and festivalgoers relish the big skies and undulating terrain of the area – captured so vividly in the paintings of David Hockney (one of which – Wheat Field Near Fridaythorpe – featured on the front cover of Vogue last summer). The festival takes place just after the autumnal equinox, and so the fields will have been harvested by then (farmers are working day and night to complete the harvest over the next week or so). But the three glorious stately homes of the region (Burton Agnes, Burton Constable and Sledmere) will be open and are well worth a visit during your time in the region.
Where are the songs of spring?
The festival features two of the great clarinet works from the autumn of Brahms’ life. The mellow tone of the clarinet – evoking as it does a sweet sadness – inspired a final flowering of Brahms’ art. We are over the moon to be welcoming world-renowned clarinettist Julian Bliss to Beverley to perform these wonderful pieces for us:
- The Trio for Clarinet, Cello & Piano, in which Julian collaborates with Libby and Cara Berridge.
- The Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, where Julian teams up with our artists in residence, the Sacconi Quartet.
Whilst these works are tinged with autumnal nostalgia, we mix them with some joyful and exuberant pieces:
- In ‘Echoes of Spring‘, we hear Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock in which the lovers look forward to being reunited in spring.
- In ‘Double Time‘, Libby joins the Sacconis to close the festival with Schumann’s ecstatic Piano Quintet – dedicated to his wife Clara, one of the leading musicians of her age.
Words without songs
A popular feature of our festivals are the enlightening talks given by leading thinkers and speakers. And so we are delighted to welcome not one but two distinguished speakers to the festival later this month, Dr Katy Hamilton and Professor Tom McLeish:
- In ‘The Poetry and Music of Science’, Tom McLeish compares creativity in science and art.
- Kary Hamilton explores how ‘chamber’ music has shifted through the centuries in ‘In Camera – Ex Camera’.
Both talks are free, and places can be reserved here:
À bientôt
We can’t wait to welcome you to the festival in a few weeks, whether the medieval streets of Beverley are carpeted in leaves or whether it’s an Indian Summer! Best wishes to everyone starting the new academic year in the mean time.
