Michael Collins & Friends

Michael Collins clarinet

Benjamin Nabarro violin

Akiko Ono violin

Rachel Roberts viola

Steffan Morris cello

Michael McHale piano

Stravinsky The Soldier’s Tale: Suite Robin Holloway Trio for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano Op 79

Bartók Contrasts

Prokofiev Overture on Hebrew Themes Op 34

Shostakovich Piano Quintet in G minor Op 57

Michael Collins is joined for the evening concert by three more friends - Benjamin Nabarro and Rachel Roberts who are regular visitors with Ensemble 360, plus the Japanese violinist Akiko Ono - and they bring a programme which is true Festival fare. It includes another work by Robin Holloway, premièred by Emma Johnson in Malvern in 1994. Stravinsky effectively left Russia before World War One and wrote The Soldier’s Tale in Switzerland. Bartók left Hungary in 1940 for America where he composed Contrasts for Benny Goodman. Prokofiev, who was born in Ukraine, spent fifteen years in the USA and France before returning to Russia in 1933. He suffered, like Shostakovich, from the ideological demands of Communism but wrote many great scores. Shostakovich was eventually allowed to travel out of the USSR and his reputation has grown over the last fifty years. His Piano Quintet written in 1940 is a powerful masterpiece.