88. Main Evening Concert – Finale

The summer season of chamber music festivals puts musicians under a lot of pressure trying to fit in as many desirable locations and collaborations with friends as possible. Inevitably airline timetables become as important as opus numbers and musicians end up accidentally promising to be in two places at the same time. This is by way of saying that Esther Hoppe has to leave after her Bach recital in the morning, so we have expanded the Finale programme into new directions. Paddington Trio is a well-established, competition-winning young ensemble. Ellen Lindquist is a Norwegian composer, her Shining Through was written for the Trondheim Chamber Music Competition. It is a shimmering, atmospheric piece from the Far North, a world of icebergs and midnight sun. Rebecca Clarke is a familiar name to Bantry audiences, she was one of the notable composer-performers taking the patriarchy by storm a hundred years ago. Her Piano Trio opens with a tremendous peroration announcing her motto – here I am, listen to me! After the first interval, Dudok Quartet will play Beethoven’s Harp Quartet preceded by a short mystical arrangement for quartet of Messiaen’s Oraison, originally written for six ondes Martinot but better known as the source for the famous cello/piano duet from The End of Time. Beethoven wrote his Harp Quartet in the aftermath of Napoleon’s chaotic occupation of Vienna, this serene work giving no hint of the turmoil outside Beethoven’s door. The reason for the harp nickname is immediately obvious when, after the mysterious slow Introduction, you hear the joyful outbursts of pizzicato that at times almost overwhelm the first movement. Mendelssohn’s Octet is everyone’s favourite alongside the astonishment that a sixteen-year-old could write such a substantial and uplifting work.