Our 2024/25 season got off to a stunning start on 26th November 2024 with a superb recital by the internationally acclaimed pianist Leon McCawley, playing to a highly appreciative capacity audience. Showcasing composers from Bach (arranged Liszt) to Rachmaninov, this was a wide-ranging tour de force. The early Beethoven A major sonata Op 2 No 2 sparkled with Haydnesque wit and clear articulation, in complete contrast to Rachmaninov’s brooding Etude-Tableau in A minor Op 39 which followed it. Before the interval there was a remarkable transcription by Liszt of Bach’s Organ Prelude and Fugue in A minor BWV543, with fortissimo left hand octaves mimicking the organ pedals, and drawing on the full resonant resources of the Royal Over-Seas League’s Steinway Model D. After the interval, we had another complete change of mood, with Mendelssohn’s Rondo Capriccioso Op 14, followed by his Six Songs Without Words Op 19b, including the well-known Venetian Gondola song. To finish, there was the impassioned and highly virtuosic G minor sonata by Robert Schumann. As Leon McCawley reminded us in his introduction, the first movement is marked “as fast as possible”, but this does not prevent Schumann from adding “faster” and “still faster” as instructions to the pianist later in the same movement! Finally, we had more Schumann in an atmospheric encore: the Prophet Bird from Waldszenen (Forest Scenes) Op 82.
This was playing of the very highest calibre, by a pianist at the peak of his artistic powers, and completely at home and able to inhabit the very different sound worlds of a wide range of different composers.
Our spring concert on Friday 7th March 2025 featured the horn player Ben Goldscheider, together with violinist Callum Smart and pianist Richard Uttley. This was the first time we had had a horn trio T our concerts, and we were treated to a very varied and wide-ranging programme. The concert opened with Mozart’s Horn quintet K 407 arranged for horn trio by Ernst Naumann, which was followed by the horn trio Op 44 by Sir Lennox Berkeley – the first time that these musicians had performed this in public! The piece contains extended lyrical writing, and a wonderful theme and variations as the last movment, but is also very much of the 20th century, including influences from Berkeley’s contemporary, Benjamin Britten. After the interval, Ben Goldscheider and Richard Uttley played Nachtstuck (Night Piece) by Mark Simpson. This was written for Ben Goldscheider in 2021, and depicts the frightening and disturbing aspects of the night, rather than its more tranquil aspects. The composer makes considerable demands on both players, with virtuoso writing for the piano matched by the horn player having to switch rapidly between entirely different timbres. Finally the trio played the well-known horn trio Op 40 by Brahms, which brought the evening to a rousing conclusion. This was a superb and varied concert by three extremely talented and versatile musicians, and was very much appreciated by our audience.
Our concert on Friday 23rd May showcased two prizewinning ensembles from the Annual Music Competition at the Royal Over-Seas League. In the first half, the highly original early music group Apollo’s Cabinet had put together a medically themed programme of short works, including a musical depiction by Marin Marais, born in 1656, of the operation to remove a stone from his bladder (he went on to live until he was 72 so it was clearly a success!), a tarantella dance written by Italian composers and said to cure tarantula bites, and a jig by Thomas D’Urfey which provided a musical antidote to depression and the overall title of this section of the concert, Pills to Purge Melancholy. This first half featured outstanding playing by all members of the group, especially from Teresa Wrann on the recorder, and from the versatile harpsichordist Thomas Pickering who also played the flute and the recorder. Perfect ensemble, and informative and entertaining introductions to the pieces from members of the group made this a highly entertaining and enjoyable first half of the concert.
In part two, the Basel-based Trio Archai played Schubert’s Piano Trio No 1 in B flat. Pianist Mar Valor, violinist Ayla Sahin and cellist Finn Mannion were simply outstanding. This was a high voltage performance, with wide dynamic and tonal contrasts, and perfect understanding between the players, with finely judged rubato. For many in the audience this would have been one of the best – if not the best – performance of this great work that they would have heard!
Overall, this was a fantastic evening of music from two highly talented young ensembles which clearly have great careers ahead of them.
Our summer concert, and the final one in our 2024/25 season was given on Friday 4th July 2025 by the Aquinas Piano Trio (above): Ruth Rogers (violin), Katherine Jenkinson (cello) and Martin Cousin (piano). Always very popular with our audience, this was the fifth appearance of the trio for MMSoL since we started in 2012. Book-ended by the Mozart C major trio K548 at the start, and the great Brahms C major trio Op 87 in the second half, the trio played two substantial single movement works by contrasting composers, John Ireland (Phantasie Trio) and Dmitri Shostakovich (Piano trio No 1). The latter was written when the composer was just 16, and had been in the Leningrad Conservatoire for three years. In 1907 Ireland’s Phantasie trio won second prize in a piano trio competition sponsored by the wealthy businessman William Cobbett, with first prize that year going to Frank Bridge.
This was a hugely enjoyable evening of contrasting chamber music played by a trio absolutely at the top of their game, for a large and very appreciative audience. As an encore, the trio played the well-known and haunting Oblivion by the Agentine composer Astor Piazzolla.