Lewes Chamber Music Festival 2022

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LEWES CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL U J NE 1 1 9-

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T I A N R G B TEN E L ARS YE

FRIENDS & PATRONS

NEW MATCH-FUND SCHEME 2022

Platinum Patron

Festival Friends 2022

Anonymous

Judith Hunt

Anonymous

Jonathan & Cherry Barnes M Searle

Prince Edward Gold Patrons

Trevor Harvey

Konrad & Helene Adamczewski

Peter Varlow

Brian & Rosita Green

Susanne Hoebel

Edward & Rosalind Nodder

Caroline Jollands

Stephen Riley

Elspeth Arden

Alasdair Smith

Barbara Abbs

Cyrus & Maureen Deboo

Joyce Phillips

Peter Lloyd-Bostock

J Slack

Mike & Monica Lavelle

Andrew Polmear

WELCOME

We are very pleased to announce that until the end of July all donations made to LCMF will be matched pound-for-pound TWICE, by two very generous supporters, up to the value of £5000. This means your donation will in fact be worth three times its face value! The effects of putting on a Festival last year with halfcapacity audiences and multiple restrictions means that we are still now working hard to build back our reserve in order to secure the future of LCMF. Any donations you can make before the end of July 2022 will go directly towards this.

best chamber music out there! At the first LCMF in 2012 the ‘late night Schubert’ performance of his string quintet was held in Westgate Chapel. This concert was oversold and people ended up sitting in the pulpit and on cushions on the floor – I have since learned about the importance of counting tickets! The atmosphere was incredible and it seemed right to recreate this experience at St Michael’s church ten years on. Another repertoire repeat is Brahms’ profoundly beautiful clarinet quintet, which sees the extremely welcome return of brilliant clarinettist and LCMF regular, Matt Hunt.

Christopher Burgess De Warrene Silver Patrons

Mary Burke

John Hawkins

C L Holtam

Sally Palmer & Tom Wilson

Paul Moore

David Clasen

Delia Venables

Cynthia Eraut

R Carter Simon Couldry

De Montfort Bronze Patrons

Sophia Hartland

Roger Clement

JL Cuthbertson

Helen Ross

K Kane

Ian & Kate Rothery

Deirdre O’Connell

Alan Sainer

Marie Winckler

Michael Quicke

Caroline Jolands

If you are interested in supporting the Lewes Chamber Music Festival why not consider becoming a ‘Friend’ or ‘Patron’? You would be joining a group of enthusiastic supporters of LCMF; with priority booking to all Festival events, and an invitation to various extra concerts throughout the year as well as to a Friends Reception with performers at the festival.

Please email Beth Hopkins at info@leweschambermusicfestival.com or look at our website for more information.

Robert Smith Jeremy Yeats-Edwards

SAVE THE DATE

CHRISTMAS

CONCERT 10TH DECEMBER 2022

The Lewes Chamber Music Festival is a registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) in England and Wales.

Registered No. 1151928 Registered office: 38 Prince Edwards Road Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 1BE Trustees Maureen Deboo Michael Lavelle Edward Nodder Stephen Riley Georgina Wheeler

It’s hard to believe it has been ten years since the very first Lewes Chamber Music Festival in 2012! I have been struck not only by the incredible loyal support from local audiences, (many of whom will have been to all ten festivals, bravely embracing some very adventurous repertoire!) but also by the visiting musicians, who have adopted Lewes as a special place of their own, connecting with audiences and giving spectacular performances again and again.

With the joyful return of full audiences this year, I wanted to treat everyone to a ‘luxury’ assortment of some of the

Having welcomed many stars from Glyndebourne to perform at LCMF over the past decade, it’s wonderful to team up this year in an official capacity, showcasing their 2022 Jerwood Young Artist, Jack Sandison at our Coffee Concert. He will be joining a quartet of festival musicians to sing Kate Whitley’s settings of poems by Charlotte Mew. On Friday evening we then welcome Mary Bevan MBE to sing some beautiful arrangements of music by Debussy and Chausson along with Ravel’s haunting Chansons Madécasses, accompanied by a variety of instrumental combinations – including a fleeting but crucial appearance from Claire Wickes, principal flautist of ENO. So often lying beautifully together, this French programme is bookended with English pieces: Elgar’s mighty piano quintet, and a small piece, chosen

by Bengt Forsberg, by Vaughan-Williams whose 150th birthday is this year.

Children have had a particularly tough time of it over the past couple of years so I was extremely happy to have been able to reschedule the cancelled 2020 schools tour for May this year, when the Eusebius Quartet visited 5 primary schools in and

around Lewes. Concert 3 on Friday at 12pm is our ‘schools concert’, returning for the first time since its inaugural appearance in 2019. As a starting point, repertoire will draw on pieces played during the schools tour in May, (Bartok’s 2nd Quartet) but with many wonderful additions and as anyone who attended that concert back in 2019 will have realised, this is also a concert suitable for adults, featuring a lot of spectacular pieces performed by our Festival musicians!

As for the rest of the programme, I found myself particularly drawn this year to music written by those responding to a fast-changing world around them, with much of the music being from composers living through the First World War. Today it feels more important than ever to recognise, celebrate and share some of the incredible positive things humans are capable of in times of adversity.

The amount of voluntary work and goodwill that goes into producing a Festival from scratch is astonishing, and we are all forever grateful for those who host musicians, offer up rehearsal spaces, sign up as Friends / Patrons, buy tickets and help spread the word. Without you the Festival couldn’t happen and certainly wouldn’t have grown into what it is today.

So THANK YOU to everybody, and welcome to LCMF 2022!

Beatrice Philips, Artistic Director

Artistic Director Beatrice Philips General Manager Beth Hopkins 2022 Festival Programme 1

PROGRAMME OPENING CONCERT

CONCERT 1

Thursday 9 June 7pm / Trinity Church, St John Sub Castro

George Enescu (1881-1955) Piano Suite No. 2, Op.10 in D Major I Toccata

Bengt Forsberg piano

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Piano Trio in E-flat Major, WoO38 I Allegro moderato II Scherzo: Allegro ma non troppo III Rondo: Allegretto

Alasdair Beatson piano Tim Crawford violin Vashti Hunter cello

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) String Quartet in E Minor, Op.83 I Allegro moderato II Piacevole (poco andante) III Allegro molto

The Eusebius Quartet: Beatrice Philips, Venetia Jollands violin Hannah Shaw viola Hannah Sloane cello

INTERVAL Paul Juon (1872-1940) Piano Quintet No. 2 in F Major, Op.44 I Allegro moderato II Commodo III Sostenuto IV Risoluto, irato e con impeto

Bengt Forsberg piano Michael Gurevich violin Bogdan Božović violin Adam Newman viola Hannah Sloane cello

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) String Quartet in E Minor, Op.83 By 1917 Elgar’s creativity as a composer appeared to be winding down: as Diana McVeagh says in Grove’s Dictionary “oversimplifying, it could be said he turned towards either propaganda or fantasy”. Indeed, after his wife Alice’s death in 1920 he composed very little of substance. But, surprisingly, between 1917 and 1919 he produced four instrumental works which are still hugely popular: the Violin Sonata and String Quartet in 1918, and the Piano Quintet and Cello Concerto in 1918-19. All four were largely composed while the Elgars rented Brinkwells in Fittleworth. Their neighbour Ford Maddox Ford had proposed the move from London in response to Elgar’s poor health, which indeed improved. In these works, as if accepting his own unresponsiveness to the new directions that contemporary music had taken, Elgar reverts to the instrumental music of his youth, but composed with a life-time’s experience.

The String Quartet of 1918 is the only one by Elgar to survive an early work of 1887 was destroyed. It followed a request made around 1900 by the cellist of the Brodksy Quartet (the second of the quartets founded by violinist Adolph Brodsky), to whom the piece was dedicated. Elgar had started on a String Quartet in 1907 but it was abandoned to the First Symphony which incorporated some of its ideas. Early in 1917, while recovering from a tonsillectomy, he embarked on a new quartet which was completed only after further interruptions from the Violin Sonata and Piano Quintet. The string quartet shares the key of E minor with both the Violin Sonata and the Cello Concerto, a key associated by Ernst Pauer in his 1876 treatise on “The elements of the beautiful in music” with “grief, mournfulness, and restlessness of spirit (p.24)”. Restlessness is certainly there in the opening figure’s rhythmic uncertainty (illustrated), duplet opposing triplet.

The tension relaxes with a new espressivo, purely triplety version of the opening. The Piacevole (Agreeable) middle movement was described by Lady Elgar as ‘captured sunshine’. The second violin releases the first sunbeams. Lady Elgar also wrote that the finale is ‘most fiery & sweeps along like Galloping of Squadrons’. The second movement was played at her funeral in 1920.

LATE-NIGHT SCHUBERT Thursday 9 June 10pm (drinks from 9:30pm) / St Michael’s Church

Franz Schubert (1796-1828) String Quintet in C Major, D.956

I Allegro ma non troppo II Adagio III Scherzo. Presto – Trio. Andante sostenuto IV Allegretto – Più allegro – Più presto

Tim Crawford violin Beatrice Philips violin Lilli Maijala viola Vashti Hunter cello Amy Norrington cello

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) String Quintet D.956 in C (1828) A big welcome back to LCMF to the Schubert Quintet, previously heard at the very first Festival in 2012 in Westgate Chapel. No chamber music grouping is so dominated by a single work as the 2-cello string quintet is by Schubert’s C-major quintet. Schubert’s dominance might have been less, had Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim not persuaded Brahms that his new 2-cello quintet needed rescoring – it ended up as his Op 34 piano quintet and the original was lost. None of the various attempts at reconstructing the 2-cello version have caught on. Rarely does a concert programme feature any other than Schubert’s masterpiece despite Borodin and Glazunov each having written one, George Onslow about 30 and Boccherini, its inventor, over a hundred. Boccherini’s earliest dates from 1771, the year after the young virtuoso cellist entered the court of the Spanish king. The court already boasted a string quartet, which served as backing to Boccherini’s generally flamboyant first cello part.

Schubert, however, treats the two cellos much more equally, most memorably in the second theme of the first movement (illustrated), but he also uses the extra cello to produce new combinations and textures way beyond those of his predecessors or those found in quintets with two violas rather than two cellos.

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CONCERT 2

It is difficult when writing programme notes on such a wellknown masterpiece to steer a course between the indulgently effusive and the banal, but it might be useful to point out two things: the first is the thematic integrity of the work - how a couple of contrasting motifs reappear in different forms throughout; the second is the relationship between the quintet and the slightly earlier, anguished quartet in G. The opening bars of these two works are unusual and strikingly similar: a long crescendo on a held major chord. But whereas the quartet then hits you hard with an abrupt minor (a frequent Schubert trope), the quintet raises the tension with a diminished seventh chord only to calmly return to the major. It is as if, just two months before his death, Schubert had achieved a reconciliation, mastering the terrors of the earlier work.

The almost static long first note of the work is the first of the motifs I had in mind. It precedes the two-cello theme above, gives its essence to the almost unbearably slow theme of the Adagio, and to the sostenuto theme of the third movement’s Trio. My contrasting second motif is two identical short notes followed by a different, sometimes longer note. It starts the main theme (illustrated) and is used to accompany the two-cello theme illustrated above. Later in the movement, the two repeated notes become two crotchets after an up beat with which the second cello accompanies a particularly serene passage; shortly after, this figure is used in a relentless, exchange between the first violin and first cello, reminding us of the threatening darkness.

In the uniquely beautiful Adagio, the first violin’s expressive and profound commentary is another, now dotted, version of this form. Reassuring pizzicato from the second cello alternates with the first violin’s commentary and supports a theme from the middle strings that is almost frozen in time. This almost trance-like state is disrupted by a driving triplet figure and an intensely sustained angry theme. (The G-major quartet has a similar contrast in its slow movement, but there the interruptions are stabs of terror.)

The anger subsides and the slow theme and accompanying dialogue resume, with the violin’s pizzicato releasing the second cello to make its own commentary.

The Scherzo and Trio contrast in a similar way to the Adagio, but with the Trio being the interlude of extended calm against the boisterous Scherzo.

The genial last movement has something of the lilt of a Viennese dance, its theme starting with two repeated notes which also make up its accompaniment. Chris Darwin 2022 Festival Programme 3

LUNCHTIME STORIES

CONCERT 3

Friday 10 June 12 midday / St Michael’s Church

EVENING CONCERT Friday 10 June 6pm / Trinity Church St John sub Castro

Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) Intermezzo for String Trio

Ralph Vaughan-Williams (1872-1958) Romance for violin and piano

Bogdan Božović violin Hannah Shaw viola Hannah Sloane cello

Beatrice Philips violin Bengt Forsberg piano

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Petite Pièce for clarinet and piano Matt Hunt clarinet Bengt Forsberg piano

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Après un Rêve (from 3 Songs, Op. 7) Vashti Hunter cello Alasdair Beatson piano

Jorg Widmann (b.1973) “Once Upon a Time…”

Five pieces in fairy-tale style for clarinet, viola and piano No. 4 - Von mädchen und Prinzen (Of girls and Princes) Alasdair Beatson piano Matt Hunt clarinet Lilli Maijala viola

Bohuslav Martinu (1890 – 1959) 3 Madrigals for violin and viola (1947) I - Poco allegro - Poco vivo

Tim Crawford violin Lilli Maijala viola

Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) Klid (Silent Woods) Op.68 No.5 Hannah Sloane cello Alasdair Beatson piano

Béla Bartók (1881-1945) String Quartet No.2

II. Allegro molto Capriccioso

Eusebius Quartet: Beatrice Philips, Venetia Jollands violin Hannah Shaw viola Hannah Sloane cello

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CONCERT 4

Eusebius Quartet with children from Wallands Primary School.

(May 2022)

Béla Bartók (1881-1945) String Quartet No.2 Op 17 (1915-17) The year 1904 was a turning point in Bartók’s life. He was staying in a hotel in the north of Hungary finishing his Piano Quintet – a late-romantic show-piece – when he heard a Transylvanian-born maid, Lidi Dósa, singing in an adjacent room; he noted down her songs. From this happy encounter sprang a life-time of collecting folk song in collaboration with his contemporary, Zoltán Kodály.

The collected materials in turn spawned Bartók’s own voice as a composer, as he incorporated their characteristic melodies, harmonies and rhythms. The music that he collected was quite distinct from the ‘Gypsy’ music that had already permeated into Western art music (eg Haydn’s ‘Gypsy Rondo’ Piano Trio) and which Bartók despised for adulterating ‘true’ Hungarian folk music. The range of his knowledge of folk music was substantially expanded in 1906 when he took a break from a violin/piano recital tour of Spain to cross the Straits of Gibraltar, and heard Arabic folk music for the first time. In 1913 he returned to North Africa on a trip to Algeria, recording its Berber music on wax cylinders. The influence of this trip is very marked in the second movement of his Second Quartet, which he started in 1915. Its composition was paradoxically aided by WW1. Bartók was excused military service because of his poor health; both he and Kodály were entrusted with the collection of folksongs from soldiers, leading to a patriotic concert. But this still left time for concentrated composing, including the Second Quartet.

The percussive, wild, Bacchanalian second movement of this second String Quartet recalls the Berber music that Bartók had heard in Morocco and Algeria. After the attention-grabbing tritone-based first few bars the second violin starts a series of 159 insistently-repeated octave D quavers while the viola slaps pizzicato and the first violin barks out a wild song of repeated thirds decorated with sliding semitones. After a brief pause, we are off again, the first violin joining the second a tone higher for another 79 repeated octave quavers. Things get wilder, braking, accelerating, quizzically pausing before dashing off again even faster. Then suddenly - a different world: muted pianissimo and prestissimo (really fast – a virtuosic 8 crotchets a second) – the wild dancers ominously metamorphosed into Kafkaesque scurrying insects. Although fortissimo alternating thirds slam the door shut on this extraordinary movement, the world has changed. Chris Darwin

Ernest Chausson (1855-1899) Chanson Perpétuelle Op.37 for piano quintet and voice Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Settings of poems by Paul Verlaine, arranged by Robin Holloway for piano, string quartet and voice.

1. Mandolin CD43 2. La Mer est plus Belle 3. Le son du cor s’afflige vers les bois 4. L’échelonnement des haies moutonne à l’infini Mary Bevan soprano Bengt Forsberg piano Bogdan Božović violin Michael Gurevich violin Adam Newman viola Amy Norrington cello

INTERVAL Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Chansons Madécasses

1. Nahandove. Andante quasi allegretto 2. Aoua. Andante 3. Il est doux. Lento

Mary Bevan soprano Claire Wicks flute Amy Norrington cello Bengt Forsberg piano

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) Piano Quintet in A Minor, Op.84 I Moderato – Allegro II Adagio III Andante Allegro

Alasdair Beatson piano Beatrice Philips violin Tim Crawford violin Hannah Shaw viola Amy Norrington cello

Debussy’s settings of four Verlaine poems are re-interpreted here

by Robin Holloway in this new arrangement for string quartet and piano. Holloway creates linking sections between each song, in his own style but inspired by Debussy’s writing, to make one longer work.

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) Piano Quintet in A minor Op 84 (1918) The eerie opening and strange episodes of the first movement of the quintet have led to much speculation about Elgar’s inspiration.

His wife Alice’s diary in September 1918 proposes a copse of lightning-struck trees in nearby Flexham Park: ‘[Edward] Wrote part of Quintet wonderful weird beginning same atmosphere as ‘Owls’ [an Elgar part-song] – evidently reminiscence of sinister trees & impression of Flexham Park ... – sad ‘dispossessed’ trees & their dance & unstilled regret for their evil fate “.

The trees later became associated with impiously-inclined, itinerant Spanish monks through a “local legend” for which there is no independent evidence and which may have been invented after the quintet was written. Another suggestion, again from Alice’s diary, is that Elgar was influenced by Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel “Strange Story”. Whatever. Incidentally, the infamous opening of another Bulwer-Lytton novel - Paul Clifford - “It was a dark and stormy night...” inspired the San Jose State University’s BulwerLytton Fiction Contest “to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels”. The first movement combines a variety of episodes contrasting in tempo and mood. The opening slow plainsong-like phrase is commented on by nervously apprehensive interjections (illustrated). The scoring here is curious: the sustained chorale given to the usually percussive piano, and the percussive comments to the strings. A sighing little motif in falling semitones leads to the robust, familiarly Elgarian theme of the main Allegro.

But it is soon interrupted by more sighs and then by a transformation of the opening interjections into a seductive (Spanish?) little number from the violins in thirds above a strummed pizzicato (illustrated).

The different episodes take on new forms and roles during this long and intriguing movement.

The slow movement’s glorious, spacious opening (illustrated) is a joy for the viola, though soon to be taken over by the violin.

The movement is perhaps the emotional heart of the quintet. It was certainly a favourite of Elgar’s who, during his final illness, would listen to it in tears.

The opening of the last movement recalls one of the work’s initial phrases, albeit at a slower tempo, before breaking into a robust theme marked con dignita, cantabile. The mood changes to a ghostly piano, the chorale of the opening returns and the two violins dance a nostalgic waltz before the main theme returns us (nobilmente) to more solid, even exuberant, ground - ghosts apparently banished. Chris Darwin

2022 Festival Programme 5

LATE NIGHT CONCERT

CONCERT 5

Friday 10 June 10pm / Trinity Church St John sub Castro

Alban Berg (1885-1935) 4 Pieces op.5 for clarinet and piano Matt Hunt clarinet Bengt Forsberg piano

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op.115 I Allegro II Adagio III Andantino IV Con moto

Matt Hunt clarinet Bogdan Božović violin Tim Crawford violin Lilli Maijala viola Vashti Hunter cello

Alban Berg

Alban Berg (1885-1935) Vier Stücke Op 5 (clarinet & piano) (1913) Alban Berg was born into an affluent Viennese family. All four children were taught piano, and following the death of his father in 1900, which caused severe financial difficulties for the family, the young Alban began to compose piano duets and a large number of songs for family music making. He was hopeless at school, fathered a child with a kitchen maid, and on leaving school could only find unpaid work as a civil servant. He was saved by his brother and sister bringing his compositions to the attention of Schoenberg who in 1904 took him on as a composition pupil.

In 1906 thanks to an inheritance, he was able to relinquish his job and concentrate on music, also studying under Zemlinsky.

Schoenberg recognised Berg’s abilities and initial shortcomings: ‘Alban Berg is an extraordinarily gifted composer, but the state he was in when he came to me was such that his imagination apparently could not work on anything but lieder. Even the piano accompaniments to them were songlike. He was absolutely incapable of writing an instrumental movement or inventing an instrumental theme’. Under Schoenberg, Berg’s style developed rapidly, influenced by Schoenberg’s own development of atonal forms, but maintaining Berg’s emotional expressivity. After Schoenberg moved to Berlin in 1911, he still expected Berg to carry out musical and domestic chores for him, and Berg needed his ex-teacher’s approval.

In 1913, however, Berg asserted his musical independence with the composition of the Five Altenberg Lieder Op 4 for soprano and orchestra (whose performance caused a riot at the concert hall) followed by tonight’s Four Pieces Op 5 for clarinet and piano. Schoenberg, perhaps feeling threatened by the talented pupil now composing outside his guidance, gave Berg, who was visiting him in Berlin, a blistering criticism of the ‘insignificance and worthlessness of his recent compositions’. Berg’s confidence was shattered and he moved away from this miniature style, starting work on the opera Wozzeck the following year.

Chris Darwin Johannes Brahms - Clarinet Quintet, opus 115 Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet is one of his final works, written as part of a surprising re-emergence from retirement. In 1890, with the completion of his superb Viola Quintet in G, he declared that his creative output was at an end, and that (at age 57) he would spend his remaining days ordering his affairs and his earlier compositions, and relaxing. However, on a visit to Meiningen, he heard an amazing clarinetist, Richard Mühlfeld, and was inspired by this artist to return to composing. It is to Mühlfeld, whom Brahms affectionately named “Fräulein Klarinette”, that we owe the Clarinet Trio, the Clarinet Quintet, and the two Clarinet Sonatas, and indirectly the other music from this time – the sublime piano music of opp. 116-119 and the Four Serious Songs. Many have argued that the Clarinet Quintet is Brahms’ most profound chamber work.

It is an oversimplification to describe it as melancholy and autumnal, although this is part of the truth; in fact, there is a great

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depth of sadness in the piece, which may not be felt in every bar but is never far from the surface. At the same time, though, the music is constantly energised by rhapsodic, wild gestures and flickering textures; our tragic hero, if there is one, is driven to wander restlessly, not stay at home. The most obvious example of this energy is the extraordinary “Gypsy” section in the middle of the slow movement, where the clarinet rhapsodises over tremolandi in the strings; but this element is elsewhere as well - quicksilver arpeggios in the third movement, buzzing triplet textures in the first movement - and the agonised climax at the end of the first movement is anything but autumnal. Another striking feature of the work is its constant sliding between major and minor modes. Even at the opening, it is not immediately clear if we will be in D major or B minor, and in fact the first entrance of the clarinet is a tantalising, upward D major arpeggio, a gleam of light in a minor phrase. Later in the movement, before the return of the opening material, a phrase between the clarinet and cello in B major offers a brief Elysian vision before the two instruments spiral hopelessly downwards to the parallel-minor home key, and we are back where we started. The major-minor dialectic of the second movement speaks for itself, the luminous major outer section contrasted with its wild-eyed, Bohemian alter ego in minor.

Perhaps most amazing of all, in spite of the freedom of gesture and emotion, in spite of the immense textural palette that is brought to bear, there is no mistaking the tightly bound quality of the work, the sense that there is no escaping fate here. The main themes from all four movements can be seen to be closely related in their basic contours – particularly the first and last movements – and the middle movements are each mono-thematic. Most dramatically, the final movement, a carefully unfolding set of variations, reverts suddenly and shockingly, at the end, to the music of the first movement; and after a recitative-like passage where a crucial question seems to be asked, ends almost exactly as the first movement ends. Thus we have no sense of having arrived at any kind of solution or victory—the usual idea in an evolving four movement 19th-century form – but quite the opposite, of having been brought fatefully back to earth, where we started, albeit deeper and richer for the experience. Misha Amory (Brentano Quartet)

2022 Festival Programme 7

COFFEE CONCERT Saturday 11 June 11am / St Michael’s Church

(Coffee from GROUND served in the church garden from 10:30am)

Kate Whitley (b.1989) 3 Charlotte Mew settings for Baritone and Quartet Sea Love The Farmer’s Bride Rooms

Jack Sandison baritone Tim Crawford violin Michael Gurevich violin Hannah Shaw viola Vashti Hunter cello

Arthur Bliss (1891-1975) Clarinet Quintet I Moderato II Allegro molto III Adagietto espressivo IV Allegro energico

Matt Hunt clarinet Beatrice Philips violin Bogdan Božović violin Adam Newman viola Hannah Sloane cello

Kate Whitley on her settings of Charlotte Mew poems These Charlotte Mew settings were suggested by Steven Oliver, and put together with the support of poet Julia Copus. I really enjoyed getting to know Charlotte’s poetry, which I knew nothing about before. I love how the strange and dark poems like ‘moorland night are’ as well as how simple and beautiful poems like ‘sea love’ are. My favourite in the set is ‘I so liked spring’ – it’s such a straightforward, understandable poem but with a really poignant and beautiful, sad message behind it. The original version of the first 4 poems was for male singer and string quartet before I wrote 4 more for soprano and string quartet, but I like how the gender of the speaker in Mew’s poems is often ambiguous, so it has seemed to make sense. Today three of the settings are being performed by baritone: Sea Love, The Farmer’s Bride, and Rooms.

Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet (1932) Arthur Bliss was half-American on his father’s side. At Cambridge he studied with Charles Wood and Edward Dent, then with Stanford at the Royal College of Music. After distinguished service in World War I, he gained notoriety with ensemble works such as Conversations (1920). During the 1920s A Colour Symphony (1921-2), the Oboe Quintet (1927) and the choral/orchestral Pastoral (1928) established him as a major figure in British music.

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CONCERT 6

In the thirties 1930s his reputation was enhanced by the choral symphony Morning Heroes (1930), the Clarinet Quintet (1932), and the Piano Concerto (1938-9).

Composed in 1932, immediately after Morning Heroes, Bliss’s overtly public requiem for his beloved brother, a clarinettist and victim of the First World War, the Quintet is a more intimate, deeply personal, expression of his loss. Dedicated to the composer Bernard van Dieren, the first performance was given at Bliss’s home on 19 December 1932; followed by the public premiere on 17 February 1933 at the Wigmore Hall. A work of maturity and mastery, it is undoubtedly among his finest achievements.

Bliss manifestly loved the clarinet’s sound, commenting ‘It is an immensely agile instrument, capable of extreme dynamic range, extending from a powerful forte to the softest pianissimo.’

Like Mozart and Brahms in their clarinet quintets, he chose the A clarinet because of its silkier tones. It is heard to expressive effect at the beginning of the first movement with an extended solo cantilena. Gradually, in a manner that Bliss likened to a conversation, the other instruments steal in tenderly echoing the clarinet’s melody to produce a web of luminous counterpoint.

However, as often with Bliss, the serenity which marks the first movement is contrasted with altogether ominous moods in the jabbing rhythms, martial-like call to arms and discords of the scherzo. Contrast is provided by a solo violin melody of heartrending poignancy, which is followed by a pizzicato passage before the drama returns.

At the heart of the work, the Adagietto espressivo grows from the simple syncopated violin phrase at the start. The full expressive range of the clarinet is exploited in long florid lines and decorated arabesques as the music quickens to a climax in the movement’s centre. After this central point a stately sarabande-like melody leads to a return of the principal idea. In the predominantly carefree and effervescent finale, the brilliance of the clarinet’s upper range is exploited. Shadows intrude intermittently in more introspective sections, only to be banished once and for all in the sparkling coda.

Andrew Burn c2020

*We’re delighted to be teaming up with Glyndebourne this year and welcoming one of their talented Jerwood Young Artists to our roster of world class performers.

ONCE UPON A TIME…

CONCERT 7

Saturday 11 June 4pm / Trinity Church St John sub Castro

Franz Schubert (1796-1828) Notturno in E-flat major, Op. 148, D897 Bengt Forsberg piano Bogdan Božović violin Hannah Sloane cello

Jorg Widmann (b.1973) “Once Upon a Time…”

Five pieces in fairy-tale style for clarinet, viola and piano 1. Es war einmal…

2. Fata Morgana 3. Die Eishohle 4. Von mädchen und Prinzen 5. Und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind Alasdair Beatson piano Matt Hunt clarinet Lilli Maijala viola

INTERVAL Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Piano Trio in D minor, Op.120 I Allegro, ma non troppo II Andantino III Allegro vivo

Alasdair Beatson piano Beatrice Philips violin Amy Norrington cello

Gabriel Fauré (1845 - 1924) Piano Trio in D minor, Op.120 (1922/3) Although Fauré is best known for his vocal writing, in particular his songs and Requiem, he also wrote chamber music throughout his life: two sonatas each for violin and cello with piano, a piano trio, a string quartet, two piano quartets and two piano quintets.

The piano trio dates from the last years of his life, together with the second piano quintet and the string quartet. By then he suffered from cacophonic hearing – although mid-range notes were heard at their correct pitch, high notes sounded a 3rd too low and low notes a 3rd too high. Perhaps for this reason the piano trio generally occupies the tonal middle-ground, eschewing extremes of pitch.

Fauré’s career had not been straightforward. Born to a family of minor aristocrats in southern France, he was sent aged 9 to board at Niedermeyer’s music school in Paris, which trained organists and choirmasters. Fortunately, the excellent grounding it gave to Fauré in renaissance church music was extended to include Schumann, Liszt and Wagner when, on Niedermeyer’s death in 1861, Saint-Saëns

took over the piano and composition classes. But Fauré remained attached to the modal harmonies of early music throughout his life, much of which was spent as an organist or choirmaster. His attempts to secure a post at the conservatoire were for a long time thwarted by conservatives who despised his ecclesiastical background and disliked his style of composition. However, he eventually secured a post there aged 52 and, surprisingly, 8 years later, the subversive Fauré became the conservatoire’s director. He amply justified his enemies’ fears by instituting (necessary) radical reforms, earning himself the sobriquet ‘Robespierre’ ! While at the conservatoire he taught Maurice Ravel, Georges Enescu and Nadia Boulanger. Deafness, elevation to the Légion d’Honneur and gentle hints prised him from the directorship into retirement in 1920 at the age of 75.

Two years later, Fauré started to compose the Piano Trio. Initially he had a clarinet taking the upper part, with violin as an alternative, but the idea of the clarinet had disappeared by the time it was published. Clarinettists have understandably resurrected the option.

Both the themes (illustrated) of the compact and effective first movement are marked ‘cantando’ – singing. The first is obviously in the movement’s triple time while the second pretends that there are only two beats in the bar. Both themes are eloquently sung and extended with subtle play on their contrasting metres. The gloriously long slow movement also shows Fauré’s dedication to maintaining a melodic line. The cello plays mainly in its high register, close to the violin. The three instruments draw out seemingly endless themes as their legacy of swerving, dodgy notes from Fauré’s early-music training sells us harmonic dummies. The lively finale shows no sign of the ill health - ‘perpetual fatigue’ - that Fauré complained of when composing this piece. As the Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux writes, ‘all the thematic and rhythmic elements are now in place and proceed to indulge in a joyful celebration, a perfect balance between ... fantasy and reason’. Chris Darwin

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Notturno in E-flat major D.897 (1827) It is very likely that this posthumously-published Adagio was originally intended as the slow movement of Schubert’s B-flat Piano Trio. Its opening theme seems to be a slowed down version of the opening of the Trio’s Allegro moderato first movement. It is not clear why Schubert rejected it, but we are lucky that he did since the replacement Andante is one of those movements that you cannot imagine being without – and we do still have the Notturno. The opening section mesmerically repeats the figure of the opening bar before picking up on a different dotted figure, to give a contrasting march-like episode somewhat curiously in 3 time rather than 4. When the original episode returns the added beat, going back to 4 from 3, makes the wait for the final beat seem even longer than it did initially. Time seems to be suspended, as Schubert perhaps wished it would in this the final year of his life. Chris Darwin

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FESTIVAL FINALE

CONCERT 8

Saturday 11 June 7.30pm / Trinity Church St John sub Castro

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) Nocturne for viola and piano Alasdair Beatson piano Adam Newman viola

Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942) Trio for clarinet, piano and cello in D Minor, Op.3 I Allegro ma non troppo II Andante III Allegro

Bengt Forsberg piano Matt Hunt clarinet Vashti Hunter cello

INTERVAL George Enescu (1881-1955) Octet for Strings in C Major, Op.7 I. Très modéré II. Même temps III. Très fougueux IV. Mouvement de valse bien rythmée

Bogdan Božović violin Tim Crawford violin Beatrice Philips violin Venetia Jollands violin Lilli Maijala viola Hannah Shaw viola Amy Norrington cello Hannah Sloane cello

10 Lewes Chamber Music Festival

Lili Boulanger (1893 – 1918) Nocturne (1911) Lili Boulanger was the younger sister of the better known composer and teacher Nadia. Theirs was a musical and latebreeding family: grandfather Frédéric had won first prize in cello at the Paris Conservatoire in 1797 and their father Ernest had won the Prix de Rome in 1835 for his cantata Achille. Their Russian princess mother Raïssa Mychetsky was 43 years younger than Ernest, who had taught her singing in St Petersburg. Like their father, Nadia and Lili both competed in the Prix de Rome, Nadia taking second place in 1908, and Lili first place (the first woman to do so) in 1913 for her cantata Faust et Hélène.

Lili’s life was plagued by illness following bronchial pneumonia as a very young child, she later contracted Crohn’s disease.

Though prodigiously talented, her frailty limited her musical education. She was initially taught composition at home

by Nadia.

Her compositions were mainly vocal, including an opera and settings of a number of Psalms. Fauré admired her work and promoted it enthusiastically. She died aged 24. It is tantalising, as always with a brief life, to speculate on what more she might have achieved. The Nocturne was originally written for violin or flute and piano - one of only a handful of Lili’s instrumental works.

Chris Darwin George Enescu (1881 – 1955 String Octet in C Op 7 (1900) Born to an estate manager’s family in the far north-east of Rumania near to its borders with the Ukraine and Moldova, Enescu was a uniquely broad musical genius: perhaps the greatest violinist of his age whose playing inspired the young Menuhin, a superb pianist, and a brilliant composer, conductor and teacher. Aged just 7, he was the youngest person ever to be admitted to the Vienna Conservatory where he was taught by Robert Fuchs (who also taught Zemlinsky); graduating at 13, he moved on to the Paris Conservatoire. The String Octet, finished when he was just 19, is dedicated to his favourite teacher at the conservatoire, André Gedalge, who also taught Nadia Boulanger, Arthur Honegger and Jacques Ibert.

The Octet was written around the same time as Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht and shares its luscious late romanticism. But it is also rather experimental, particularly when compared with Mendelssohn’s famous octet written 75 years earlier by a 16-year-old. Whereas Mendelssohn’s is conventionally classical in form, Enescu’s is more experimental. Enescu writes in the score: “This Octet, cyclic in form, presents the following characteristics: it is divided into four distinctive movements in the classic manner, each movement linked to the other to form a single symphonic movement, where the [episodes], on an enlarged scale, follow one another according to the rules of construction for the first movement of a symphony. Regarding its performance, it is to be noted that too much emphasis should not be given to certain contrapuntal artifices in order to permit the presentation of essential thematic and melodic elemental values.”

Such a large, complex work did not appear out of nowhere – Enescu had composed four symphonies by the time he was sixteen. The writing is undeniably dense, with Enescu demonstrating his dazzling contrapuntal skill across all eight players each of which is often treated like a soloist. However, he kindly helps both players and listeners by noting throughout the score which of the eight players should be let through so that their melodic contribution gets a hearing. Mendelssohn was also aware of the problems in letting a single string voice be heard against seven others and tells the players to play in a ‘symphonic orchestral style’, exaggerating the dynamics.

After an unusual and technically challenging opening where the upper seven members of the octet play in unison for ten long (3/2) bars, the first movement presents no less than six different themes which return in the other movements in different forms and tempi, fragmented and recombined, giving the whole work,as Enescu points out, the integrity of a single symphonic movement.

Chris Darwin Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942) Clarinet Trio in D minor, Op. 3 (1896) Zemlinsky was born in Vienna of a Slovak father and Sarajevan mother, and studied at the Vienna Conservatoire. In his early twenties his chamber work was performed at the Wiener Tonkünstlerverein. After the première of his String Quintet in 1896, Brahms criticised Zemlinsky for his harmonic recklessness and tonal inconsistency. Zemlinsky took Brahms’s criticisms to heart in composing the Clarinet Trio; Brahms approved of the work and recommended that Simrock publish it.

That same year Zemlinsky became friends with a young cellist in the orchestra that he conducted – Arnold Schoenberg.

Schoenberg dedicated his Op 1 lieder to him and wrote his first string quartet under his guidance. In 1901 Schoenberg married Zemlinsky’s sister Mathilde. The previous year, Zemlinsky, in the wake of the artist Gustav Klimt, had become infatuated with his pupil Alma Schindler. She admired his ‘virtuoso hands’

but taunted him for being short and ugly, and married Mahler instead. This rejection had a profound effect on Zemlinsky: as Tom Lehrer sang “The loveliest girl in Vienna / Was Alma, the smartest as well. / Once you picked her up on your antenna, / You’d never be free of her spell.” Zemlinsky’s post-Alma music, including his Lyric Suite and the cathartic opera Der Zwerg (The Dwarf, based on Oscar Wilde’s short story’The birthday of the Infanta’), became even more emotionally charged.

From 1903, Zemlinsky taught orchestration at the Schwarzwald school, where his pupils included Berg and Webern; he later, privately, also taught Korngold. In 1904, with Mahler’s support, Zemlinsky and Schoenberg founded the Vereinigung Schaffender Tonkünstler to promote new music in Vienna. For a few months in the summer of 1908 Mathilde left Schoenberg for a young Austrian painter Richard Gerstl, precipitating Schoenberg’s first atonal composition. Zemlinsky was never won over to atonalism, following a creed that he had set out in a 1901 letter to Schoenberg: ‘A great artist, who possesses everything needed to express the essentials, must respect the boundaries of beauty, even if he extends them far further than hitherto’. Zemlinsky’s composing career was fitful, but he exerted a major influence as a conductor, championing Mahler and conducting a Figaro in Prague that was for Stravinsky the most satisfying operatic performance he had ever heard. The Anschluss forced Zemlinsky to emigrate to New York, where in 1939 he suffered a stroke; his death three years later went almost unnoticed.

The Clarinet Trio of 1896 shows the influence of Brahms both in its form and its content, but with added fin-de-siècle energy, develops the brooding intensity of the opening theme, contrasting its strong passions with a lighter, altogether more optimistic and calmer (Ruhig) motif. The three instruments weave around each other in the beautifully rhapsodic Andante, interrupted briefly by a Fantasia section. The last movement’s energetically optimistic rondo is only briefly interrupted by memories of the previous movements before dismissing their concerns with a cheerfully peremptory flourish. Chris Darwin 2022 Festival Programme 11

COMPOSER PORTRAIT

PERFORMERS

George Enescu (1881 – 1955)

BOGDAN BOŽOVIĆ VIOLIN

George Enescu, widely regarded as Romania’s greatest composer, was also a world-class violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher. The cellist Pablo Casals called him “the Mozart we missed”. He organized Romania’s musical life by forming a Philharmonic Orchestra and founding the Bucharest Opera and the Romanian Union of Composers.

Born in 1881 at Liveni, northern Moldavia, Enescu was a child prodigy. By the age of five he was writing his first piece of music.

In 1888, aged seven, Enescu became the second pupil under ten to be admitted to the Vienna Conservatoire. The first was another violinist: Fritz Kreisler. Enescu graduated with the silver medal, the Conservatoire’s highest honour. In his Viennese years, Enescu played in student orchestras under Brahms’ baton.

Between 1895 and 1898, Enescu continued his studies at the Paris Conservatoire, where his teachers included Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré (composition), Martin Marsick (violin) and André Gédalge (counterpoint and fugue). From this period come songs in German, French and Romanian, works for the violin, piano, overtures, four ‘school’ symphonies, and his Opus 1, the Poème Roumain. For his seventeenth birthday, Queen Marie of Romania gifted him a complete edition of Bach’s scores, all of which were committed to his prodigious memory.

Just thirty-three compositions carry an Opus number. A much larger body of music remains unpublished or in sketch form, such as incomplete concertos for piano and violin, are performable only from manuscripts. By his own admission, Enescu’s first mature works were the Second Sonata for piano and violin and the Octet for strings. Enescu was not yet nineteen when he finished writing the Octet in 1900.

Several of Enescu’s works bear the influence of Romanian folk music, though it is inappropriate to label him a folkloric composer.

These include two Romanian Rhapsodies, his only opera Oedipe, the third violin sonata, the Third orchestral suite and Impressions d’Enfance for violin and piano. Mature works include five symphonies (two completed from sketches after his death), the symphonic poem Vox maris, two cello and piano sonatas, three piano suites, a piano trio, two string quartets, a piano quintet, a dectet for wind instruments and a chamber symphony for twelve solo instruments.

Throughout his life, Enescu combined composition with multiple performing careers across Europe and the USA. Yehudi Menuhin cited Enescu as “the violinist by whom all others are judged”. His performances of Bach’s violin music were renowned; he wrote cadenzas for concertos by Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart, and promoted Chausson’s Poeme and Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole.

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Bogdan Božović enjoys a versatile international career as chamber musician, soloist and chamber orchestra leader. As violinist of the world-renowned Vienna Piano Trio from 2012 to 2015, he has toured Europe, the Americas and Asia, appearing in some of the most prestigious chamber music venues, including the

Wigmore Hall in London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Vienna, Cité de la Musique in Paris and The Frick Collection in New York. He has made two critically acclaimed recordings with the ensemble on the label MD&G, featuring works by Beethoven and Saint-Saëns.

His chamber music festival performances include IMS Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music in Cornwall, England (member of the tour-ensemble in 2011), Chamber Music Connects the World in Kronberg, as well as the Prades, Båstad, Gstaad, Whittington, Nuremberg, Caramoor and Ottawa festivals and series.

Among his chamber music partners are Steven Isserlis, Christian Tetzlaff, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Lukas Hagen and Veronika Hagen. His live recordings have had multiple international broadcasts including those by BBC Radio 3, Radio France, WDR 3, NPO Radio 4, WQXR-FM New York and Radio Beograd.

Bogdan’s recent solo-appearances include the Schumann Violin Concerto with the Symphony Orchestra Basel. He has been guest leader of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble DIAGONAL Basel (in their Lucerne festival-performance), Ensemble Phoenix in Basel and others. He is a founding member of the Leondari Ensemble, resident ensemble at the annual

Saronic Chamber Music Festival in Greece.

Bogdan has given master-classes at the Royal College of Music in London, Leeds College of Music and has been a tutor at the chamber music seminar MusicWorks in West Sussex/England.

A native of Belgrade, Serbia, he studied with Vesna Stanković at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, Klara Flieder at the University Mozarteum Salzburg and obtained his masters degree with distinction in the class of Rainer Schmidt at the Basel Academy of Music.

Other important musical influences were from lessons with Ferenc Rados, Pamela Frank, Chiara Banchini (baroque violin) and collaborations with contemporary composers such as Heinz Holliger and Georg Friedrich Haas.

Bogdan plays on the “ex-Arma Senkrah” Stradivarius violin from 1685, on generous loan from the Ruggieri Foundation.

Currently studying in Basel Musik Akademie with Rainer Schmidt, Tim Crawford is a sought after British chamber musician and soloist. Prior to his studies in Basel, Tim completed his undergraduate degree at the Guildhall School in London being awarded a Concert Recital Diploma, Ivan Sutton Chamber Prize and the Lord Mayor’s Prize.

He plays regularly with his string trio, The Teyber Trio, a musical partnership with violist Timothy Ridout and cellist Tim Posner that they’ve shared since the age of 15. Between 2017 and 2020 he also played with the Barbican Quartet, during which time they won first prize and classical era prize at the Joseph Joachim International Chamber Music Competition, but has recently founded the Valo Quartet with long time playing partners Maria Włoszczowska, Lilli Maijala and Amy Norrington.

Tim has been attending the IMS Prussia Cove Masterclasses since he was 18, studying with Andras Keller and Steven Isserlis. In 2019 he was invited on the IMS Open Chamber Music Tour across the U.K., and later that year began playing occasionally with the Nash Ensemble, the long-standing resident chamber ensemble of the Wigmore Hall in London. Next year he will again participate in the IMS Prussia Cove Tour, ending with a concert at the Wigmore Hall in London.

He also leads Collegium, a string group set up by Lawrence Power in 2019. Tim plays a 1770 Ferdinand Gagliano.

TIM CRAWFORD VIOLIN

MICHAEL GUREVICH VIOLIN Enescu often played his own music or conducted that of his compatriots with orchestras in Paris, Philadelphia and New York, where he was considered to succeed Arturo Toscanini. His violin pupils included Yehudi Menuhin, Ida Haendel, Christian Ferras, Arthur Grumiaux, Ivry Gitlis and Ginette Neveu.

Enescu was devoted to Princess Maria Cantacuzino and married her in 1939. He lived between France and Romania.

After World War II and the Soviet occupation of his homeland, Enescu remained in Paris, where he died in 1955. Enescu is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Composer profile © Evan Dickerson 2022

Dutch violinist Michael Gurevich enjoys a varied performing career. He has appeared as leader with ensembles as far ranging as the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Arcangelo, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Dunedin Consort and Benedetti Baroque, and as section principal on both violin and viola, with Philharmonia, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Concerto Copenhagen and many others.

Devoted to chamber music, Michael is a member of the London Haydn Quartet and frequently plays with the Nash Ensemble. With these groups and others, Michael has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Wigmore Hall, Royal Concertgebouw, the Louvre, Melbourne Recital Centre, at the Verbier, Edinburgh, Aix-enProvence and Aldeburgh Festivals and in numerous other venues and festivals across the world. He has also recorded extensively for the Hyperion label, including

seven critically acclaimed albums in the London Haydn Quartet’s cycle of Haydn quartets and a disc of Bruch’s chamber music with the Nash Ensemble. Further recordings include a disc of Schumann piano trios for Champs Hill Records with the Rhodes Piano Trio, clarinet quintets by Weber and Krommer with the London Haydn Quartet for Glossa as well as four albums for Alpha as leader of Arcangelo. Radio broadcasts include appearances on BBC Radio 3, SWR2 in Germany, ABC Classic FM in Australia, CBC Radio in Canada, NHK in Japan and many others.

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VENETIA JOLLANDS VIOLIN Award-winning violinist Venetia Jollands enjoys a career spanning many genres, from baroque to pop.

Whilst studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with David Takeno and Krysia Osostowicz, Venetia received First Class Honours, the Concert Recital Diploma and Donald Weekes Memorial Prize for her Undergraduate Degree, then achieving distinction for her Masters in Performance. Since graduating, Venetia has been a regular member of the 12 Ensemble, with whom she has toured to South Korea, Germany, Norway, Lanzarote and around the UK, where they have shared a stage with Max Richter, Milos Karadaglic, Mari Samuelsen and Maxim Rysanov to name a few.

They have performed at the BBC Proms, on BBC Radio and in venues such as the Barbican, Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, Snape Maltings and Festival Hall. She appears on the acclaimed debut album, Resurrection,

ADAM NEWMAN VIOLA

BEATRICE PHILIPS VIOLIN

HANNAH SHAW VIOLA Beatrice Philips enjoys a busy and diverse freelance life as a much sought-after chamber musician, soloist, and orchestral leader. She is a member of the Eusebius Quartet, which is fast gaining a reputation for its imaginative and communicative performances and last year released its debut CD of chamber music by Korngold to widespread critical acclaim. Beatrice enjoys collaborations with many wonderful musicians and regularly appears at various chamber music festivals around the world including Cheltenham, Kuhmo, Oxford, Two Moors, FitzFest, Resonances, IMS Prussia Cove, and broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 with the Eusebius Quartet. In 2012 Beatrice founded the Lewes Chamber Music Festival, now firmly established as one of the country’s leading festivals attracting many worldrenowned performers. Beatrice also enjoys historical performance and has played principal violin and soloist for many leading period ensembles including Arcangelo and performing with the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique directed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner in

concert halls all over the world including Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and Berlin Philharmonie among many others. Earlier this year she was invited to lead the English Baroque Soloists in a programme of Mozart and Haydn symphonies under John Eliot Gardiner on a tour of California. She looks forward to recording a second disc with the Eusebius Quartet featuring music by Fauré and Elgar.

Beatrice gained a First Class degree from Kings College London university during which she studied violin at the Royal Academy of Music with Howard Davis.

Following this, she completed a Masters at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, studying with Erkki Kantola and Paivyt Meller. During her Masters she studied for a year in Paris with Olivier Charlier at the CNSM. Beatrice plays a violin by Spiritus Sorsana of Turin dating c.1740.

LILLI MAIJALA VIOLA

Violist Hannah Shaw performs as a chamber musician throughout Europe and the US. She is a member of the Eusebius Quartet and appears regularly at such festivals as Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, Festival de Musique de Chambre à Giverny, Holland Festival, Ironstone Chamber Music Festival, Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival, and many others.

Through her interest in contemporary music, Hannah frequently performs with the Amsterdam-based Asko|Schönberg Ensemble; has worked with such composers and conductors as Reinbert de Leeuw, Kaija Saariaho, Peter Eötvös, Heinz Holliger, Louis Andriessen, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Elliott Carter; and has performed at the Acht Brücken Festival, Saariaho Festival Den Haag, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and MoMA’s Summergarden series.

As a baroque violist, Hannah regularly appears with Arcangelo and Anima Eterna Brugge. She has also

performed as guest with many orchestras, including Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Hannah holds a Bachelor of Music degree with honours from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School.

Much in demand as both a soloist and chamber musician, Vashti Hunter has been invited to important festivals such as Lockenhaus, Ernen, Heidelberger Frühling, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Boswiler Sommer and Shanghai chamber music festivals. She has collaborated with artists such as Steven Isserlis, Martha Argerich, Pekka Kuusisto, Nicolas Altstaedt and Vilde Frang and performs regularly around the world with her piano trio, Trio Gaspard. The Ensemble was formed in 2010 alongside violinist Jonian Ilias Kadesha and Pianist Nicholas Rimmer and studied with Hatto Beyerle at the European Chamber Music Academy. Vashti is also a member of the Kelemen String Quartet and will record all 6 Bartók quartets for the record label ‘Alpha’ in 2023. During the second lockdown they worked regularly in Budapest with György Kurtag and Ferenc Rados. Vashti has won top prizes in international

competitions in Vienna, Prague and Weimar. She teaches cello to Masters students at the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover and chamber music at the Hochschule für Musik in Rostock. Vashti plays on a Rombouts cello built in 1720 in Amsterdam.

VASHTI HUNTER CELLO One of the most sought-after Nordic string players, Lilli Maijala has carved out a distinguished voice as a violist in all elements of musical engagement. Since 2011 she has been Head of Viola Faculty at the famed Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and has concurrently appeared regularly as both soloist and chamber musician on stages throughout Europe.

Having made her solo debut at the age of 17 with the Oulu Symphony Orchestra, Maijala has been no stranger to the unique role of a viola soloist. She has appeared in performance as a featured artist with orchestras including the Helsinki Philharmonic, Lapland Chamber Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Folkwang Kammerorchester Essen and Tapiola Sinfonietta. She gave the world premiere of Lauri Kilpiö’s Viola Concerto with the Jyväskylä Sinfonia in 2013. More recently, she made a recording of Pehr Henrik Nordgren’s Concerto for Viola, Double Bass and Chamber Orchestra alongside bassist Olivier Thiery, Juha Kangas and the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. This 2019 Alba Records release was received with excellent reviews.

She has been recognized by critical acclaim at numerous international competitions, including the Munich ARD Competition, the Nordic Viola Competition and the Viola Space Tokyo International Viola Competition. In 2003 she took first prize at the Klassik

14 Lewes Chamber Music Festival

Adam Newman began his musical studies in Liverpool aged 7, learning a variety of instruments before focusing on the viola. He went on to study with Philip Dukes and Louise Hopkins in London before continuing his studies in Europe with Tatjana Masurenko, Lars Anders Tomter and Rainer Schmidt.

as well as their second album Death and the Maiden.

As a session musician, Venetia has recorded for artists such as Sampha, Bryce Dessner, Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Hans Zimmer, Jed Kurzel, Carly Paradis, Ellie Goulding and Boy George as a member of the London Contemporary Orchestra, Orchestrate, the 12 Ensemble and others. She regularly appears on luxury cruise ships as a guest entertainer. Venetia has been a member of the Eusebius Quartet since its formation in 2015, and regularly performs at chamber music festivals across Europe. She plays a violin by Francesco Gobetti (c.1710, Venice) on private loan, and a bow by W. E. Hill and Sons.

Festival Ruhr, held in conjunction with various music academies all across Europe.

Currently based in Amsterdam, Lilli is in considerable demand, dividing her time between her teaching post and many international venues such as West Cork Chamber Music Festival, IMS Prussia Cove, Festival Resonances, Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival, Oslo Kammermusikkfest, Musikdorf Ernen and Delft Chamber Music Festival. She was previously a member of the highly acclaimed quartet-lab with members cellist Pieter Wispelwey, violinists Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Pekka Kuusisto.

After extensive studies throughout Germany and Scandinavia with Diemut Poppen and Lars Anders Tomter (among others), she now cherishes the opportunity to actively participate in the molding of a new generation of violists. Maijala plays primarily on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume viola from 1870, on loan by kind permission of the Finnish Cultural Foundation, as well as on a baroque viola.

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BENGT FORSBERG PIANO

AMY NORRINGTON CELLO Amy Norrington is a popular partner in the international chamber music world. Her musicianship attracts world class musicians to share in unique concert experiences, one of the most renowned being Festival Resonances of which she is the founder and artistic director.

Acclaimed by the press for her honesty and singing sound, Amy enjoys an international career as a chamber musician, soloist and guest principal cellist in orchestras throughout Europe.

She collaborates with musicians such as Jeremy Denk, Philippe Graffin, Alina Ibragimova, Steven Isserlis, Pekka Kuusisto, Aleksandar Madzar, Denes Varjon and Antje Weithaas and is regularly invited to play at festivals and in all the main concert halls in Europe and beyond.

Recent highlights include performances at Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and the Liszt Academy Hall in Budapest.

Amy is a member of the Fortepiano Trio Talisma, the recently formed Valo String Quartet and the award

Bengt Forsberg is one of Sweden’s leading pianists and is particularly esteemed as a recital accompanist.

He pursued courses at the Royal Academy of Music in Gothenburg (Göteborg), Sweden, training to become a church organist and cantor, but by the time of his graduation in 1978 had shifted to the piano, in which he obtained his diploma. He has become known for his wide repertory and his constant interest in finding neglected music. In 1999, he performed Nikolai Medtner’s Second Piano Concerto with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, played as part of the multi-piano recitals in performances of Stravinsky’s The Wedding and George Antheil’s Ballet mécanique in Copenhagen, and the solo part in Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety Symphony with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra. His repertory includes piano solo works of Korngold, Alkan, Chabrier and Sorbaji. His recordings

winning ensemble Oxalys with whom she has recorded prolifically. She performs in a Duo with the pianist Piet Kuijken and also with the guitarist Antigoni Goni and enjoys guest appearances with many other chamber music ensembles such as Camerata RCO Amsterdam and the Elias Quartet.

Amy Norrington is Professor of Cello at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven and of Chamber Music at the Orpheus Institute in Gent. She regularly gives masterclasses at The Royal Academy of Music in London, RNCM and the Brussels Conservatoire.

Amy enjoys mentoring young chamber ensembles and in 2018 she founded the Resonances Chamber Music Academy in Belgium which attracts some of the best music students from all over the world.

HANNAH SLOANE CELLO

MATTHEW HUNT CLARINET A graduate of the Juilliard School, cellist Hannah Sloane enjoys an international career centered upon chamber music. She has participated in Thy (Denmark), Domaine Forget (Canada), Lewes (UK), Wye (UK), Arcadia (UK), Taos (USA) and Kneisel Hall (USA) Chamber Music Festivals. In 2016, she was a founder member of the Eusebius Quartet, who have gone on to develop an exciting career and have been hailed as ‘excellent’ by the Sunday Times for their ‘clarity and unity of thought’.

Finalists in the 2018 Royal Overseas League, the quartet has been in residence at Lewes Chamber Music Festival, Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival and FitzFest, as well as regularly performing live on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune. Upcoming engagements include appearances at Kings Place, Aldeburgh Festival and Tetbury Festival.

As a soloist Hannah has performed with the Angel, Blackheath, Buxted, Haydon, Lambeth and Juilliard

Orchestras. With the Juilliard Orchestra in 2009, she played Tan Dun’s Concerto for Six with the composer at Alice Tully Hall. Hannah retains musical links with the USA, and regularly performs recitals in Boston, San Francisco, New York and Santa Fe with pianists Allegra Chapman and Jillian Zack. Hannah has worked as guest principal cello with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Spira Mirabilis and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera. She also plays regularly with the London Chamber Orchestra and the MultiStory Orchestra. Hannah graduated from The Juilliard School in New York in 2013. Her principal teachers were Carey Beth Hockett, Robert Max, Darrett Adkins and Joel Krosnick. Hannah plays a Piattellini cello dating 1780, which is kindly on loan to her from the Stark family.

ALASDAIR BEATSON PIANO Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson works prolifically as soloist and chamber musician. Notable performances in 2022 include Beethoven violin sonatas with Viktoria Mullova at Wigmore Hall, concerto appearances with Royal Northern Sinfonia and Vaasa City Orchestra, and appearances in festivals including Bach festival Swidnica, Bath Mozartfest, Ernen, Lewes, Resonances and West Cork. Alasdair is renowned as a sincere musician and intrepid programmer. He champions a wide repertoire with particular areas of interest: Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann; the solo and chamber music of Gabriel Fauré, Bartók and Janáçek; concertos of Bach, Bartók, Britten, Fauré, Hindemith, Messiaen and Mozart; and contemporary works, including the piano quintet of Thomas Adès, George Benjamin’s Shadowlines and Harrison Birtwistle’s Harrison’s Clocks. Future plans

One of Britain’s leading clarinettists, Matthew Hunt is a distinctive musician, renowned for the vocal quality of his playing and his ability to communicate with audiences. He holds the position of solo clarinettist with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and is a member of the Sheffield based chamber group Ensemble 360. A very keen chamber musician, he appears regularly with Meta4, the Chiurascuro and Elias quartets, Thomas Adès, Pekka Kuusisto, Emily Beynon, Nicholas Altstaedt, Alina Ibragimova, and La Bande de La Loingtaine. He has also appeared as a guest of the Berlin Philharmonic as a soloist in their series at the Berlin Philharmonie Kammermusik Saal.

Matthew’s plans for this season include appearances at festivals including Lockenhaus (Austria), Kaposvar (Hungary), Kuhmo (Finland) and Charlottesville (United States), and concerto appearances with the

Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and Paavo Jarvi, and with the Georgian Chamber Orchestra, Ingolstadt. As an orchestral musician, Matt a regular guest principal with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and has appeared as a guest principal with the Concertgebouw and BBC Symphony Orchestras and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

Matthew’s recording for ASV of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet with the Elias quartet was met with critical acclaim, with the BBC Music Magazine hailing it with five stars as “the Benchmark recording of this much recorded work”.

Smith Square, a European tour of Handel Messiah with Kammerorchester Basel, Handel Theresienmesse with the Handel and Haydn Society and Bach B Minor Mass with the Philhamonia Baroque Orchestra. Further highlights include recitals at Wigmore Hall, Lammermuir Festival and Osafestivalen alongside returns to Oxford Lieder, the Bolshoi Theatre and Carnegie Hall.

Last season, she returned to Royal Danish Opera for her role debut as Marzelline Fidelio and for the production LIGHT Bach Dances with director John Fuljames and conductor Lars Ulrik Mortensen. She also made her house debut at the Bolshoi Theatre in David Alden’s production of Ariodante as Dalinda. On the concert stage, she sang the world premiere of Sir James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and A.Bliss Rout with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Highlights of previous seasons include Rose Maurrant in Weill’s Street Scene for Opera de Monte Carlo and Eurydice in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld for English National Opera. Bevan recently garnered praise for her Royal Danish Opera debut as Bellezza in Il Trionfo del tempo e del desinganno, for the title role in Turnage’s new opera Coraline for the Royal Opera at the Barbican, as well as for her return to the English National Opera as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, and her debut as Merab in Saul for the Adelaide Festival. For the Royal Opera House she created the role of Lila in David Bruce’s The Firework-Maker’s Daughter, sang Barbarina Le nozze di Figaro on the main stage, and the title role in Rossi’s Orpheus at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

On the concert platform, recent highlights include appearences with the BBC Symphony, BBC Concert

Orchestra at the Proms, and with Mirga Gražinyte·Tyla and the CBSO in the world premiere of Roxanna Panufnik’s Faithful Journey. She joined the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment as Mary in Sally Beamish The Judas Passion; performed Bach Christmas Oratorio on tour in Australia with the Choir of London and Australian Chamber Orchestra; and Handel Messiah with the Academy of Ancient Music. She also headlined a tour of Asia with The English Concert and Harry Bicket and made her Carnegie Hall debut with the ensemble as Dalinda in Handel Ariodante. Bevan’s discography includes her art song album Voyages with pianist Joseph Middleton and Handel’s Queens with London Early Opera, both released by Signum Records, Mendelssohn songs for Champs Hill Records, Handel: The Triumph of Time and Truth and Handel: Ode for St Cecilia’s Day with Ludus Baroque, and Vaughan Williams Symphony No.3 and Schubert Rosamunde with the BBC Philharmonic. In autumn 2019 Signum released her second disc with Joseph Middleton including Lieder by Schubert, Haydn and Wolf.

MARY BEVAN SOPRANO include the first performances of a new piano concerto, written for him by Helena Winkelman. Two new recordings are released in Spring 2021: 3 Beethoven sonatas for violin and fortepiano with Viktoria Mullova on Onyx, and a solo piano recital Aus Wien on Pentatone. These join a discography of solo and chamber recordings on BIS, Champs Hill, Claves, Evil Penguin, Pentatone and SOMM labels.

Praised by Opera for her “dramatic wit and vocal control”, British soprano Mary Bevan is internationally renowned in baroque, classical and contemporary repertoire, and appears regularly with leading conductors, orchestras and ensembles around the world.

She is a winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist award and UK Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent in music and was awarded a MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list in 2019.

In the 2021/22 season, Bevan performs Haydn The Creation at the Barbican Hall with the Academy of Ancient Music, Belinda and First Witch Dido & Aeneas with the Early Opera Company at St John’s

16 Lewes Chamber Music Festival

include compositions by Godard, Boëllmann, Koechlin, Pierné, and Alfvén. Fosberg may be the most esteemed and in-demand accompanist. Amongst the artists he regularly accompanies are cellist Mats Lidström and violinist Nils-Erik Sparf. With the mezzo-soprano Sofie Von Otter he has maintained a long-standing partnership resulting in many recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon label.

2022 Festival Programme 17

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JACK SANDISON BASS-BARITONE British Bass-Baritone Jack Sandison graduated from The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2017 with a first class honours degree. He studied under the tutelage of Professor Stephen Robertson.

Jack was a member of the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus in 2021, performing in Il Turco in Italia, and sang the role of Keeper of the Madhouse in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress on tour. Other recent engagements include, Wexford Festival Opera, Birmingham Opera Company and Garsington Opera where he covered the role of Speaker Die Zauberflote, Haushofmeister Capriccio and Cadmus and Somnus in Handel’s Semele. Other roles include The Court Usher Rigoletto (WFO, Glyndebourne on Tour - cover), and Ashby La Fancuila del West (WFO).

Jack looks forward to rejoining the Glyndebourne chorus this year as a Jerwood Young Artist, where he

will sing the role of The Bearded Man in Les mamelles de Tiresias, and cover the role of Colline in La Boheme.

Jack was the recipient of a full scholarship from the ABRSM and RCS Trust, and winner of the Scotts Song Competition. In 2017, Jack was the recipient of the Helen Clarke Award for his work as an Alvarez Young Artist (Garsington Opera), and second prize winner in the Joaninha Award competition 2020. In 2021 he was selected as winner of the Wessex Award, and this year was the recipient of the Miriam Trevaux award for his performance as Keeper of the Madhouse with Glyndebourne.

Festival director

One of Britain’s leading flautists, Claire Wickes was appointed as Principal Flute of the English National Opera Orchestra in 2015 shortly after graduating from the Royal College of Music. She is in demand as guest principal flute of all major London orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia and Aurora Orchestra. As a recording artist Claire often appears as a featured artist on albums as well as film soundtracks, and performs regularly on broadcasts for tv and radio.

Claire read music at Brasenose College, Oxford, where she held an academic scholarship and graduated with first-class honours. She subsequently completed her Masters degree at the Royal College of Music. Claire regularly coaches, examines and leads masterclasses at all London conservatoires, and recently joined the panel of Young Caribbean Musician of the Year in the

Dominican Republic. Claire achieved international competition success as a prizewinner at the Aeolus Competition, and appears frequently as a concerto soloist. As a chamber musician she frequently performs alongside internationally acclaimed artists at chamber music festivals across the UK. Alongside harpist Tomos Xerri, Claire performs in Siren duo, and enjoys exploring beyond the conventional flute and harp repertoire.

Claire also composes music for film and media, and currently works as a composer for Berlin-based sample library company Orchestral Tools.

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James Boyd

Oliver Wilson

Hannah Sloane

LEWES

LEWES CHAMBER

Katharine Gowers Hélène Maréchaux Michael Gurevich

MUSIC

f ESTIVAL

Philip Higham

Jonathan McGovern Alasdair Beatson Patron: Anthony Marwood

TICKETS

CHAMBER MUSIC

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7th-9th June 2013

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‘‘

… certainly one of the world’s great violins.

- W. E. Hill & Sons

Lewes Chamber Music Festival 2017 great success!

Tarisio is a leading specialist in fine instruments and bows. With offices in London and New York, we are pleased to help today’s great players find outstanding instruments.

18 Lewes Chamber Music Festival

the Month with a 5-star review by BBC Music Magazine in January 2022.

The Eusebius Quartet has collaborated with many wonderful musicians including pianists Alasdair Beatson and Bengt Forsberg; clarinetists Matt Hunt and Michael Collins; oboist Daniel Bates; bassoonist Amy Harman and tenor Nicky Spence. Since forming they have toured throughout Europe and to Santa Fe, USA, alongside more recent performances closer to home including appearances at Kings Place, Conway Hall and

© Marianne Morrier

THE EUSEBIUS QUARTET

12-14TH JUNE 2015

LEWE S 6–8 June 2019 ChAMBE R M uSIC F ESTIVA L

Wishing

Praised as “convincing and stylish” by Gramophone magazine, the Eusebius Quartet was formed in 2016 out of a passion for the extraordinary music written for this formation. They have gained a reputation for communicative and imaginative performances possessing “full-blooded yet flexible tone” (BBC Music Magazine). Their debut CD, featuring the chamber music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, was released in October 2021 by SOMM Recordings to widespread critical acclaim, including being named as Recording of

L EWES CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL Celebrating Joseph Haydn

An exceptional violin

by Nicolò Amati, 1682 Sold in 2016

Glyndebourne and they continue to frequently perform live on BBC Radio 3. The quartet are regular guests at numerous chamber music festivals throughout the UK including the Lewes Chamber Music Festival, of which their first violinist Beatrice Philips is the Artistic Director and founder. Last year the quartet were awarded a residency at Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme at Snape Maltings, where they worked with Hungarian pedagogue and pianist Rita Wagner - culminating in performances of quartets by Bartok and Schumann at the Aldeburgh Festival. Following a summer of festival appearances in Sussex and London, next season will see the recording and release of their second CD on the SOMM label featuring quartets by Elgar and Fauré.

The members of the quartet first met as teenagers and then again later at IMS Prussia Cove, reuniting as a quartet after completing their respective studies.

Between them they bring influences from their rich and diverse musical backgrounds, having each studied at leading international conservatoires, namely the Juilliard School, New York, the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music, London and the Paris Conservatoire.

The Eusebius Quartet takes its name from one of the two fictional characters invented by Robert Schumann for his musical journal writings. These characters became symbolic of Schumann’s opposing moods: the fiery and impassioned Florestan contrasted the philosophical and dreamy Eusebius.

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Celebrating ten years of Lewes Chamber Music Festival Beatrice Philips

CLAIRE WICKES FLUTE

01

FAURÉ AND FRIENDS

23 – 25 June 2017

17 – 19 June 2016

www.leweschambermusicfestival.com

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T I A N R G B TEN E L ARS YE

2022 Festival Programme 19

THANK YOU Without the help and support of the following people, this year’s LCMF would not have been able to go ahead:

Harriet’s Trust Tarisio

Our brilliant volunteers who are responsible for the smooth-running of the Festival: Maureen Deboo

Mike Lavelle/John Sargent

Georgina Wheeler

Dacia Tasker Memorial Fund.

Saskia Levy Dethmers Gilly Barrett

Thank you to those who volunteered to host musicians and rehearsals and offered facilities: Sarah & Nigel Philips Helene & Konrad Adamczewski Sally & Tom Palmer Krystyna Weinstein Sherry & Alasdair Smith Mary Burke & Jeremy Yeats-Edwards James & Anna Flynn Cynthia Eraut Thank you to the Eusebius Quartet and to all the schools that participated in the Schools Tour and lunchtime concert:

Guido Martin-Brandis Helene Adamczewski Thank you to Chris Darwin for providing brilliant programme notes.

Thank you to Peter Hall at Breaky Bottom for supplying wine for the late-night Schubert concert.

Thank you to the Depot Cinema for giving us the Studio space for the Open Rehearsal.

Thank you to Rick at Pharmacie Coffee for supplying and brewing the coffee for the Coffee Concert.

01273 525354

lewesdepot.org CINEMA

RESTAURANT

Pinwell Road Lewes BN7 2JS

Thank you to Cavatina Chamber Music Trust for enabling us to make tickets for those under 26 free.

Wallands Primary Southover Primary School Iford & Kingston Ditchling Primary St Pancras School

The biggest ‘thank you’ of all must go to Sarah and Nigel Philips for their tireless support throughout the planning and running of LCMF. Breaky Bottom Vineyard Rodmell, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 3EX First release of 2017 wines.

Breaky Bottom 2017 Cuvée John Agard - Chardonnay/Pinot Breaky Bottom 2017 Cuvée Grace Nichols – Seyval Blanc

Nicholas Yonge Society International chamber music in Lewes

These vintages are dedicated to two brilliant Guyanese poets, dear friends of Peter and Christina Hall.

They have lived in Lewes since the 70’s.

2022 - 2023 Season 28 Oct 2022 2 Dec 2022 27 Jan 2023 24 Feb 2023 24 Mar 2023

Piatti String Quartet Zoltan Fejervari (piano) Brompton String Quartet Armida String Quartet Arcadia String Quartet with Katya Apekisheva (piano)

Concerts at 7:45pm Cliffe Building, East Sussex College, Mountfield Rd, Lewes BN7 2XH

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John was awarded The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2012 Grace was awarded The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2022 A unique achievement!

Breaky Bottom is always happy to support the Lewes Chamber Music Festival We look forward to attending Schubert’s Quintet on 9th June!