Simon Blendis (violin) enjoys an international career as a chamber musician, soloist and orchestra leader. Simon has shared the position of First Concertmaster with Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan since 1999, is Concertmaster of the London Mozart Players - the UK’s oldest chamber orchestra - and is in demand as a guest concertmaster with most of the UK’s leading orchestras. As a soloist he has performed and recorded with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the BCMG in the UK and with Orchestra Enesmble Kanazawa in Japan, with whom he has recorded Vivaldi’s Four Seasons for the Warner Japan label. 

Martyn Jackson (violin) was described by the legendary violinist Ida Haendel as “one of the most exceptionally gifted violinists I have ever encountered.” He is a multiple prize winner and has played all the main concertos in recent seasons. He toured with the principal players of the Berlin Philharmonic and as an orchestral musician is frequently asked to be Assistant Concertmaster with the LSO and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Tim Lowe (cello) is a versatile musician playing concertos and chamber music in the UK and abroad. His recent recital at Wigmore Hall (with Andrew Brownell) was described as ”… compelling in every respect: probing, virtuosic and yielding by turns – a true example of outstanding musicianship.” Tim is Guest Principal Cello of the English Chamber Orchestra and a teaching professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He is the Artistic Director of York Chamber Music Festival.

Sarah-Jane Bradley (viola) Sarah-Jane is a leading violist with an international reputation. She has played as soloist with most of the UK’s major orchestras and has recorded acclaimed CDs of viola music. She was a member of the Leopold String trio and of the Sorrel String Quartet. She is Co-Artistic Director with John Lenehan of the Rossetti Ensemble, and has pioneered innovative chamber programmes at festivals throughout the UK.

John Lenehan (piano) has appeared in concerts throughout the World from Abu Dhabi to Zurich and from Aberdeen to Zimbabwe. As a soloist he has appeared with orchestras such as the London Symphony and the Royal Philharmonic. He has collaborated with some of the leading instrumentalists of our time and is recognised as an outstanding and versatile chamber musician. John has made over 70 CDs covering a huge range of musical styles. His four-disc survey of John Ireland’s piano music received great critical acclaim including a Gramophone award.

Anthony Marwood (violin) is known worldwide as an artist of exceptional expressive force. His energetic and collaborative nature places him in great demand as soloist/director with orchestras worldwide. The 17/18 season includes a tour with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, play/direct engagements with the Sydney Symphony and Tapiola Sinfonietta in Helsinki, debuts with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra (Adès concerto) and Jacksonville Symphony (Berg)

and two concerto appearances with the Chamber Orchestra of Paris (Beethoven and Berg).

Anthony Marwood’s most recent release – his 50th on the Hyperion label – is a recording of Walton’s Violin Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The disc has received a 5-star review in The Guardian, whilst the Sunday Times hailed Marwood as “a thrilling, virtuosic soloist”.

Marwood was appointed a Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music in 2013. He was appointed an MBE in the 2018 Queen’s New Year’s Honours List. He plays a 1736 Carlo Bergonzi violin, kindly bought by a syndicate of purchasers.

Ian Brown (piano) has appeared with most of Britain’s leading orchestras and he has played on stages worldwide. As a duo partner he is in great demand and has worked with Mstislav Rostropovich, Henryk Szeryng, Ruggiero Ricci, Elisabeth Söderström, Felicity Lott, György Pauk, Ralph Kirshbaum and James Galway and others.

He became pianist with The Nash Ensemble in 1978 and during this long association has played at all the important British music festivals. He has taken part in their annual Wigmore Hall series and has recorded extensively with them. He was the soloist in Messiaen’s Oiseaux Exotiques at the Proms and recently toured Germany with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in concerts celebrating Hans Werner Henze’s sixtieth birthday.

Irène Duval (violin) is establishing herself as a compelling and versatile performer and has appeared frequently as a soloist both throughout her native France and abroad. Irène has won numerous competition prizes. She was awarded 1st prize at the 46th International Instrumental Competition in Markneukirchen for her performance of the Beethoven violin concerto, as well as the ‘Manfred-Scherzer’ prize for her outstanding interpretation of a piece by Reger. Her performance of the Beethoven

concerto received accolades from the media, the jury and the public alike. The German Free Press wrote that it was a ‘Beethoven from heaven’.

Her first CD Poèmes recorded with Pierre-Yves Hodique for Mirare/Harmonia Mundi, was released last September with works by Poulenc, Szymanowski, Chausson, Fauré and Ernst.

Irène plays a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin of 1850, a copy of the Sancy Stradivarius, which is on loan to her by a private sponsor.

Eivind Ringstad (viola) Eivind won the prestigious Eurovision Young Musician competition in Vienna in 2012 and since then has established himself as one of Norway’s most important young talents. As a soloist Eivind has performed with such orchestras as the Oslo Philharmonic and the NRK Orchestra.

Recent highlights include his debut with Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra with violinist Guro Kleven Hagen performing

Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, and appearances with Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and Bergen International Music Festival. He will play the Walton viola concerto with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra this season. Currently he is continuing his training at Barratt Due Institute of Music, studying with Soon-Mi Chung and Henning Kraggerud.

Eivind plays a Guadagnini viola from 1768, kindly on loan from Dextra Musica.

Steven Isserlis (cello) is equally at home drawing the audience into his circle of friends for chamber music or in recital; delving into the historical archives to emerge with a forgotten gem; or on the concert platform with some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, such as Boston Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Philadelphia Orchestra and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; and conductors, among them, Vladimir Ashkenazy, the late Sir Colin Davis, Ton Koopman and Christoph Eschenbach. His chamber concerts are renowned, not only for the quality of performance but also for his ingenuity and innovation in programming. Projects in the past few seasons have included a “Taneyev and Friends” series at the Wigmore Hall, a Brahms series at the Salzburg Festival, a festival entitled “Sleeping Beauties” with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and a highly-acclaimed Saint-Saëns festival in London. Isserlis is also well-known for his musical enthusiasms, which, in addition to the late music of Schumann, include the lesser-known music of Carl Frühling. Among his non-musical enthusiasms are the Marx Brothers, the 19-century novelist Wilkie Collins and the children’s book “The Land of Green Ginger” by Noel Langley.

Steven is recipient of many awards including a CBE in recognition of his services to music, and the Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau. He is also one of only two living cellists featured in Gramophone’s Hall of Fame.

He gives most of his concerts on the Marquis de Corberon (Nelsova) Stradivarius of 1726, kindly loaned to him by the Royal Academy of Music.

20th-22nd SEPTEMBERFestival Patron – Steven Isserlis

2018YORKchamber music festival

ProgrammeYORKchamber music festival

York Chamber Music Festival is a partner organization of

York Festival of Ideas

Fe s t i v a l A r t i s t s

EVENT THREEFriday 21 September 7.30pm

National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate.

Festival Artists:Martyn Jackson and Simon Blendis (violins), Sarah-Jane Bradley (viola), Tim Lowe (cello)

Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809) String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 20 Sun Quartet Hob.III:35

Frank Bridge (1879-1941) Three Idylls for String Quartet (H.67)Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) String Quartet No.2 in A Minor, Op. 13.

This concert is to be played by four of the country’s leading string players; chamber musicians who are friends and with a chemistry that produces electrifying performances. Haydn’s Op. 20 string quartets were ground breaking so that idea of the string quartet could never be the same again. The F Minor quartet is dark and brooding with Haydn, age 40, maturing and absorbing the stirrings of Romanticism in the Sturm und Drang (“storm and stress”) movement and in the process Haydn changes the string quartet forever in this dark and brooding landmark piece. Frank Bridge was also changed by the tide of history but before he became haunted by the mechanized slaughter of the First World War he basked in an era of pastoral innocence, dedicating his Three Idylls to his wife to be Ethel Elmore Sinclair, an Australian violinist he knew during his student days at the Royal College of Music. Mendelssohn was also desperately in love, with Betty Pistor, a 19-year old neighbour. He wrote her a poem which became a song which became the theme in his Op. 12 quartet. The ghost of Beethoven also looms large as Felix made a detailed study of the great master’s late string quartets. But his love for Betty is abundantly clear. Poor boy! It was a shame that his feelings were not reciprocated.

EVENT ONEThursday 20 September 7.30pm

Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York“Steven Isserlis and Friends”

Anthony Marwood and Irène Duval (violins), Eivind Ringstad (viola), Steven Isserlis (cello), Ian Brown (piano)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Scherzo from the Sonatensatz in C minor, Op. posth., ‘F-A-E Sonata’

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Violin Concerto, 2nd movement (arr. Isserlis for piano trio)

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) String Quartet in E minor, Op. 121Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) Vocalise Etude No.151 -

Voix Élevées (High Voice)Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Sonata in A Major for Cello and Piano Op. 69

Steven Isserlis and Friends have put together a mouth-watering concert. The first two items arise from the friendship that blossomed briefly between the young Brahms and Robert and Clara Schumann. Brahms’ Scherzo was part of a birthday present to violinist Joseph Joachim, a collective sonata concocted by Schumann. The slow movement of Schumann’s violin concerto was championed by Brahms when Joachim withdrew the piece. The stand-alone slow movement was revived by Benjamin Britten who wrote a small codetta into the piece and made it into an ‘Elegy’ to commemorate the tragic death of horn player Dennis Brain. It was unearthed by Steven Isserlis in the Britten-Pears archives and made by Steven into this piano trio version.Fauré’s last composition – his only string quartet - is an achingly beautiful reflection on his life and despite being deaf he shares with us a deep serenity in the face his own bodily breakdown and impending death. Steven Isserlis and Ian Brown then play a beautiful ‘high voice’ study by Messiaen in which the cello sings. It sings again in Beethoven’s melodic third cello sonata in which the voice and sonority of the cello take the idea of the ‘cello sonata’ light years on from its few eighteenth century antecedents.

EVENT TWOFriday 21 September 1.00pm

Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate

Viola and Piano RecitalSarah-Jane Bradley (viola) and John Lenehan (piano)

Josef Haydn (1732-1809) Divertimento in D Major for viola and piano (recomposed for either cello or viola by Gregor Piatagorsky)

Anton Dvorak (1841-1904) Silent Woods Op. 65 (arranged Sarah-Jane Bradley)

Anton Dvorak (1841-1904) Slavonic Dance Op. 46 (arranged Kenneth Harding)

Frank Bridge (1879-1941) Two Pieces for viola and piano: Pensiero and Allego Appassionato

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Sonata in C Minor for viola and piano

The lyrical and mellow tone of the viola is revealed in all its glory in this recital by one of the UK’s preeminent viola players, Sarah-Jane Bradley. The programme contains works that were transcribed from cello originals and pieces that were written intentionally for the instrument. Haydn’s Divertimento is re-imagined by the cellist Piatagorsky for either cello or viola. Before Dvorak moved to America he went on a tour of Bohemia, playing his own music, with violinist Ferdinand Lachner and cellist Hanus Wihan. Realizing he had very little for the cellist to play Dvorak quickly adapted some of his most beautiful music for Wihan. These cello pieces once again lend themselves to the viola.

Frank Bridge was an accomplished viola player and so wrote from the heart and in the knowledge of its particular qualities as an instrument. Written on commission from Lionel Tertis these pieces evoke a haunting mixture of French impressionism, English folk modality and an atmosphere of wistful reverie. The ‘boy’ Mendelssohn was also an accomplished viola player and his sonata presages his Sextet, Piano Quintet and the celebrated Octet. He loved the sound of the viola and like Bridge knew how to write towards its particular qualities. For the era, a viola sonata was rare.

EVENT FOURSaturday 22 September 1.00pmUnitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate

Cello and Piano RecitalTim Lowe (cello) and John Lenehan (piano)

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Variations Concertante for cello and piano Op.17Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata for ’Cello and Piano in C Major Op. 102 No. 1

Robert Schumann (1810 -1856) Adagio and Allegro Op.70The partnership of Tim Lowe and John Lenehan continue the Festival’s focus on Mendelssohn opening their recital with a set of variations that he wrote for his brother. The serene happiness of the theme recalls the halcyon days of their youth on the family’s large estate on the outskirts of Berlin. With the Beethoven cello and piano sonata Op.102 we move to a world well known and revered by Mendelssohn – as we hear in his string quartet in Event Three. The Op 102 sonatas, opens the door into Beethoven’s late period in which deafness left him alone to dream in a sonic world all his own. His musical thoughts are increasingly concentrated, yet with ever greater freedom of thought resulting in miraculous masterpieces. Through sound, which he never ‘heard’, he takes us in this moment of ours on an extraordinary journey almost within touching distance of his soul. The cello was close to Schumann’s heart, an instrument that he played. Sadly he never knew a great cellist to stimulate his fertile imagination. The Adagio and Allegro Op.70 was originally written for French horn but is better known in its cello version, approved by the composer. Schumann, like Beethoven, dreaming on.

EVENT FIVESaturday 22 September 7.30pm

Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of YorkFestival Artists

Martyn Jackson and Simon Blendis (violins), Sarah-Jane Bradley (viola),

Tim Lowe (cello), John Lenehan (piano)Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778 – 1837) Piano trio in E FlatFelix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Piano Trio in D minor Op. 49

Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904) Piano Quintet No.2, Op. 81The final concert in the 2018 York Chamber Music Festival contains two of the greatest chamber music compositions in the repertoire and one of the least known. Hummel’s fate was to be neglected even though in his day he was internationally known as probably the greatest pianist in Europe– vying with Beethoven in this regard. He had been Mozart’s only full-time student and even lived for two years with the Mozart family in Vienna. But his copious output of music fell out of fashion, although is now enjoying a long-overdue revival. Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in D minor and Dvořák’s Second Piano Quintet are two of the most gloriously tuneful and appealing works in all the chamber music repertoire. Continuing our focus at this year’s festival on the chamber music of Mendelssohn we arrive at one of his mature masterpieces, full of expansive lyricism. The same can also be said of Dvořák’s Piano Quintet which represents the pinnacle of this genre of composition alongside Schumann, Brahms and Shostakovich. They are performed by a core of premiere British musicians, ending the 2018 festival with a flourish, proving that music is in a sense ‘out of time’- beyond time - as these composers reach out to us in our moment. Lift up your hearts in the presence of truly joyful music and a superb musical cast.

Is it true? Is it true that you walk daily on that leaf-strewn path, awaiting me beneath the grape arbour?

”“

York Chambe r

Music Fe s t i v a l20th – 22nd September 2018Welcome to the York Chamber Music Festival 2018

I hope you will be excited by the 2018 festival programme. Our patron Steven Isserlis is bringing his ‘Friends’ to play the opening concert – celebrating the fifth year of the festival. Steven is putting on a programme full of interest including a rare opportunity to hear his re-imagined piano trio version of the slow movement of Schumann’s violin concerto with a codetta by Benjamin Britten. The heart of their programme is the soul-searching string quartet by Fauré. A concert not to miss!!

In our other concerts we are featuring two early works by Frank Bridge and in all the Festival Artists’ concerts we will play works by Mendelssohn. The mission is basically to showcase wonderful chamber music! Two lunchtime recitals by Sarah-Jane Bradley and John Lenehan and my own feature the mellow tones of the viola and cello both with sumptuous core repertoire for the instruments. Don’t miss Haydn’s revolutionary Op. 20 quartet in the second evening concert! Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in D minor and Dvořák Piano Quintet No.2 bring the festival to a climax in Event Five.

Pencil in 20- 22 September! When the time comes please do spread the word about York Chamber Music Festival. We rely heavily on word of mouth to reach our audience. As the reviewers have said on several occasions this standard of chamber music should be heard by as wide an audience as possible.

I have gathered up some of the best chamber musicians in the country, all with international reputations but ABOVE ALL who truly enjoy playing together as colleagues and friends. I urge you not to miss these few days because it is rarely the case that York can welcome such a stellar cast, truly among the finest in the world.

We also take seriously the idea of reaching out to young musicians and young people generally and your support for the free masterclasses given over the festival period is also very welcome. We are also offering ‘a new generation ticket’ to under 18 year olds for £1.

Best wishes and happy listening in 2018!

Tim Lowe(Cellist and Artistic Director)

For further information visit: www.yorkchambermusicfestival.co.ukTicketing is via National Centre for Early Music: tickets.ncem.co.uk or phone 01904 658338Tickets: £15 and under 18 - £1 (evening concerts) £10 and under 18 - £1 (lunchtime recitals) All Events Special Ticket at £50 available from the box office.Please note there is a £1.50 transction fee plus optional 50p postageYork Chamber Music Festival is registered charity No. 116141

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