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Roman Kosyakov and Sasha Grynyuk (piano)

Roman Kosyakov and Sasha Grynyuk piano

Mozart   Sonata K570
Prokofiev   Sonata No 1 Op 1
Purcell   Ground in C
Liszt   Variations on ‘Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen’
Mozart   Andante and Variations in G major K501
Schubert   Fantasy in F minor D940
Dvorak   Slavonic Dances Op 46

A powerful piano recital ends the 2022 Leamington Music Festival – a Russian and a Ukrainian pianist in harmony.

Generously supported by Peter Glanfield

Tickets: £25 reserved centre | £17 unreserved sides

Sacconi Quartet with Emma Abbate (piano)

Sacconi Quartet

Ben Hancox and Hannah Dawson violins
Robin Ashwell viola, Cara Berridge cello

with Emma Abbate piano

Vaughan Williams   String Quartet No 1 in G minor
Ravel   String Quartet in F
Elgar   Piano Quintet in A minor Op 84

We begin the 2022 Festival with a relatively rare gem from Ralph Vaughan Williams. RVW wrote his First String Quartet in 1908 after studying with Ravel for three months; it seems only natural, therefore, to pair this work with Ravel’s only Quartet which was completed in 1903.

Both RVW and Ravel served in World War I in non-combative roles, as ambulance crew and lorry driver respectively. Elgar’s great period was also the years before and during the Great War, writing patriotic music and following with his three great chamber works including the Piano Quintet of 1918.

The Sacconi Quartet return to Leamington after a superb opening concert of the Autumn Season and Emma Abbate, originally from Italy and now a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, makes her Leamington Music debut in this fine Festival opener.

Tickets: £25 reserved centre | £17 unreserved sides

Dante Quartet with Benjamin Frith (piano)

Dante Quartet
Zoë Beyers and Ian Watson violins
Ben Newton viola | Richard Jenkinson cello
with Benjamin Frith piano

Haydn Quartet in B flat Op 76 No 4 ‘Sunrise’
Simpson Quartet No 8
Schumann Piano Quintet in E flat Op 44

 

The Dante Quartet returns to Leamington after a four year gap and with a new line-up. Simpson’s Quartet No 8 dates from 1979 and shows the composer at his best in an attractive, powerful and gripping work which, dedicated to an entomologist, includes a most intriguing depiction of the mosquito.

With the concert having started with Haydn at his sunniest, the Festival will close with Schumann’s sparkling Piano Quintet, with Benjamin Frith back here after too long a time. Known as a soloist and member of the Gould Piano Trio, he was a pupil of the legendary Fanny Waterman and, among many awards, won the Gold Medal in the Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Israel in 1989.

Roman Kosyakov piano

Bach Partita No 1 in B flat BWV825
Schuman Novelette in F Op 21 No 1
Schumann Kreisleriana Op 16

 

We are delighted to offer a concert to a 2019 Leamington Music Prize winner, following some excellent concerts by winners in the recent Midsummer Music Festival, and the success of Claire Barnett-Jones, a winner in 2013, who took the Audience Prize in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition earlier this year.

Roman, who came to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire from the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatoire in 2017, has won many prizes in Britain and the USA and has made a recording of works by Liszt for Naxos. He includes Schumann’s masterpiece, Kreisleriana, as we prepare for his Piano Quintet to finish the Festival in style in the evening.

Peter Donohoe piano

Schubert Four Impromptus D899
Schubert Sonata in C minor D958
Beethoven Sonata in B flat Op 106 ‘Hammerklavier’

 

Peter Donohoe’s contribution to music is immense, with a reputation built internationally, nationally, and here in the Midlands – particularly with the CBSO from Simon Rattle’s time, but in recent times too.

Leamington Music welcomes him back with a programme that will thrill and delight – late Schubert and Beethoven’s ‘Hammerklavier’, the colossus among his thirty-two piano sonatas, needing Herculean strength and surpassing tenderness. This is a truly Festival programme, most eagerly awaited.

Mark Bebbington piano

Simpson Variations and Finale on a theme of Haydn
Beethoven Sonata in F minor Op 57 ‘Appassionata’

 

Coventry-born, and a noted pupil of Aldo Ciccolini, The Times has called Mark Bebbington “truly a remarkable pianist”; his international career has taken off in recent years, and we welcome this great champion of British music back to Leamington.

Mark has recorded extensively for the Somm label to critical acclaim, with no fewer than nine of his recent CDs awarded 5 stars by BBC Music Magazine.

Simpson’s Haydn Variations dates from 1948 and, with the Piano Sonata, represents the absolute best of his writing for keyboard. This paring with Beethoven’s most explosive and tempestuous sonata is an absolute must-hear.

Richard Watkins horn, Magnus Johnston violin, Michael McHale piano

Maxwell Davies Fanfare Salute to Dennis Brain Op 227b
Beethoven Sonata for Horn and Piano in F Op 17
Simpson Trio for Horn, Piano and Violin
Brahms Trio in E flat

 

Another champion of the music of Robert Simpson, Richard Watkins recorded the Trio nine years after its completion in 1984, and we begin the concert with a tribute to the great horn player, Dennis Brain, who shares Simpson’s centenary this year.

Beethoven’s Sonata was written at an exciting time of the most important developments in all wind instruments. And to follow, with the addition of the violin, this unusual combination of instruments brings the concert to a wonderful climax in Brahms’s glorious composition.

Richard Watkins is joined by two illustrious colleagues for this wonderfully crafted programme. Magnus Johnston is well known to Leamington audiences having performed here with both the Navarra Quartet and the Aronowitz Ensemble. Michael McHale is much in demand as a collaborator, and last played for Leamington Music with clarinettist Michael Collins in the 2017 Festival.

Leonore Piano Trio

Leonore Piano Trio
Benjamin Nabarro violin | Gemma Rosefield cello | Tim Horton piano

Haydn Trio in C Hob.XV:21
Beethoven Trio in B flat Op 97 ‘Archduke’

 

We look forward to welcoming back Leamington Music favourites, the Leonore Piano Trio, to the Royal Pump Rooms for the first time since May 2019 – the last Festival we were able to put on there!

This delightful programme brings works by two of Robert Simpson’s most championed composers. Simpson referenced Haydn’s music in many of his own works, and this joyful Trio was one of the last that Haydn wrote.

The ‘Archduke’, too, was the last of Beethoven’s contributions to the genre. It is a grand work of vast proportion and emotional depth, which can surely go to show why Simpson – and so many others – held Beethoven’s music in such high esteem.