Tag: Charlotte Scott

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Of Music In The Silver Air (Algernon Charles Swinburne, August), Marquee, Welburn Manor, August 12

The Waldstein Trio

TWO French piano quintets dominated this programme, with solo piano bonbons introducing each.

César Franck wrote four piano trios as a teenager and then took nearly 40 years to produce his grand Piano Quintet in F minor, premiered in 1880. Another 40 years later, Gabriel Fauré wrote his Second Piano Quintet in C minor, unveiling it in 1921. They carry certain similarities but if anything the Franck sounds the more modern.

For the Franck we had the Waldstein Trio joined by Benjamin Baker as first violin and Megan Cassidy as viola. The Waldsteins were much more focused than at their earlier outing here, not striving to make an effect, and blended well with their colleagues.

It may help to remember that although Franck was born in Belgium and became French, his parents were both of German origin. This helps to explain why the principle of leitmotif, popularised by Wagner, became so important to him: one major theme recurs in various guises in all three movements of this work. It takes a while to emerge – which accounts for the urgency this ensemble brought to the opening, while searching for its raison d’être.

The start of the slow movement similarly gropes in the darkness, but it reached a nice apex here before subsiding with a sigh of relief. The tremolos in the finale lent a sense of menace, this edginess here peaking in the two heavy pizzicato passages and eventually rushing towards a highly emotional climax, where major and minor keys jostled for superiority.

The Fauré is altogether less pretentious and the now changed ensemble reflected this. The key to its success was the delicate restraint but brilliant underpinning provided by the pianist Joseph Havlat; he was never percussive. The violins of Charlotte Scott and Emma Parker were joined by the viola of Gary Pomeroy and the cello of Jamie Walton.

There was a comfortable ebb and flow right from the start before an energetic conversation between piano and strings. In the light and airy scherzo, taken at a terrific pace, the strings were like flitting fireflies.

In contrast, the richer harmonies of the slow movement spoke of a new intimacy, over the piano’s rippling flow: its main theme, heard on low strings, delivered deep emotion before vanishing into space. The viola’s opening theme was tossed around in various guises throughout a luscious finale.

Daniel Lebhardt had opened the evening with two more tasteful episodes from Janacek’s On An Overgrown Path, always sustaining their simplicity. Similarly, he applied deft brush strokes to a Debussy prelude, a thoughtful painter at his easel.

Charlotte Scott

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Time Present and Time Past (T S Eliot, Four Quartets), St Mary’s Church, Lastingham, August 14

THE opening line of Burnt Norton, the first of T S Eliot’s Four Quartets, was amply reflected in this stirring two-pronged matinee. A very recent string trio by Huw Watkins was followed by the last of Mozart’s six string quartets dedicated to Haydn.

There is a special aura about Lastingham church. This certainly owes much to its Saxon foundation, but equally its radiant stonework lends lightness and intimacy to an arena where none of the audience is far from the players.

In Huw Watkins’s Second String Trio, these were the violinist Oliver Heath, the violist Gary Pomeroy and the cellist Jamie Walton. The intensity of their cohesion in what is by any standards a very demanding work was a privilege to experience.

The work is divided into seven short sections. It bounced straight into an electric rampage, with a marginally calmer centre. This dissolved into the total contrast of a luscious, lyrical slow movement. Like a video dissolving into new frames, it led into something darker, with upper-voice pizzicato that encouraged the cello to break free.

But one senses that Watkins does not like to stay serious for long. A flippant, frolicsome frenzy followed, suggesting Bacchic dance or even a rite of spring. A residue of anger seeped into the subsequent Adagio, although it gradually sweetened, providing a springboard into an angular free-for-all, with all threesquabbling over a four-note motif.

However,  the extraordinary finale, with supercharged cross-accents and catchy syncopation, saw the players finally coalesce in sensational style. Both the piece and its delivery were a tour de force. I would gladly hear it again any time.

After that, it hardly seemed possible that Mozart’s K.465 in C, nicknamed the ‘Dissonance’, could match the excitement of the Watkins. The violins now were Charlotte Scott and Emma Parker, with Pomeroy’s viola remaining on stage and Tim Posner taking the cello chair.

One of the special features of this festival is watching professionals go all out on a favourite piece: the thrills risk spills. But there were no spills here. After an opening as teasingly perplexing as Mozart clearly intended, there was terrific energy in the release of pent-up tension that followed and with it great transparency, so taut was the ensemble. The lovely Andante began a little forcefully but the pregnant silences in its second half were cleverly stretched.

There was even more of a surprise in the trio, which turned into a mini-drama in Sturm und Drang style, a hangover from the 1770s. The finale was brilliantly pointed. The devil was in the detail: the two-note staccato upbeat to the main theme, for example, taken in a subtle variety of ways, or the chromatic harmony, thrown out nonchalantly.

Mozart said that these six quartets were “the fruit of long and laborious effort”. This one was made to sound effortless, not least because Posner’s cello sustained the lightest of touches and allowed the spotlight to fall elsewhere: the quartet often seemed to be floating on air, a magical effect. Perhaps the secret was in the surrounding stonework.

Daniel Lebhardt

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Of A Dark Path Growing Longer (Angela Leighton, Cyclamen at the winter solstice), Marquee, Welburn Manor, August 16

THIS was an eclectic mix of solo piano numbers interspersed with music for horn, with a Leighton piano quartet at its centre. Many of the pieces referred to night and darkness, appropriately geared to the winter solstice of the title poem.

Such is the wealth of talent on hand at this festival that there were no less than four pianists on parade here.

There were 11 pieces throughout the evening. Joseph Havlat opened the innings with the last two of Schumann’s Night Pieces for piano Op 23, the first with intriguing inner voices, the second a moving chorale. In two more of Janáček’s cycle On An Overgrown Path (dotted through the festival), he was attentive to incidental detail, especially in the sploshy “Unutterable anguish”.

Daniel Lebhardt contributed Janáček’s lullaby Good Night! towards the end, having earlier accompanied Ben Goldscheider’s horn in Mark Simpson’s Nachtstück, which delivered a pretty forceful reaction to the time of day that inspired it.

Over the rambling bass line in a very active piano role at the start, the horn flew ever higher, before something gentler followed. The horn’s response to increasingly martial piano was a muted passage almost by way of protest. A processional passage in straight time blew into a climax, before an apologetic pianissimo that seemed to include quarter-tones. It was an odd but involving mixture.

The pianist Katya Apekisheva made two welcome appearances: first, on her own in Brahms’s B flat minor Intermezzo, Op 117 No 2, where her delicate arpeggios enhanced the work’s autumnal aura, and then partnering Goldscheider in Schumann’s Adagio & Allegro in A flat, Op 70. They blended superbly. After faultless scene-setting, Schumann’s flights of fancy were mouth-watering, the duo building on one another’s phrases rather than competing.

Goldscheider was back at once in Huw Watkins’s Lament, which he had commissioned in 2021 to celebrate the centenary of Dennis Brain’s birth. The composer himself was his partner at the piano. In mainly tonal, if mildly modal, harmony a slow cantilena built to an anguished climax, at which point both players grew more temperamental. It finally subsided into a resigned pianissimo, in true elegiac fashion, as if wondering what might have been had Brain lived longer.

The central work in this programme was Leighton’s Contrasts and Variants, Op 63 (1972), a piano quartet in one movement, which was given in the presence of his daughter (the poet quoted above).

Alongside Watkins as pianist we had violinist Benjamin Baker, violist Gary Pomeroy and cellist Tim Posner. Essentially an extended theme and variations, it rambles through a variety of moods, although always with an underlying romanticism.

There was some elegant syncopated pizzicato at its heart, and the players were able chameleons through its rapidly-changing colours. But even at the end, after the strings had been muted, we were left with a sense of yearning.

Goldscheider ended the evening in dazzling style with Messiaen’s solo horn evocation of the cosmos, Appel Interstellaire. It calls for a veritable thesaurus of brass techniques. Goldscheider not only despatched them all with panache, he also gave them compelling logic, a bravura performance.

Reviews by Martin Dreyer

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Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, ‘A Most Rare Vision’ (William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Marquee, Welburn Manor, August 10

Waldstein Trio’s Christos Fountos, Greta Papa and Miguel Ángel Villeda Cerón

UNDER its 2025 theme of Sonnet, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival takes quotations from poetry for each of its 14 events, with four of them – those that take place in churches – extracted from T S Eliot’s Four Quartets.

They also act as identifiers of each event, since the ensembles, all assembled from the pool of highly talented musicians holidaying on the moors, are otherwise anonymous.

One group, however, can be identified at once, since the honour of opening the festivities fell to the Waldstein Trio, winners of the Young Artists Focus award this year. Although the trio has already won a number of awards in its three years’ existence, its choice of Beethoven’s last piano trio, Op 97 in G (‘Archduke’) – a work that offers no hiding places – revealed some shortcomings.

All three are talented performers, but they are at different stages in the evolution of their musical personalities. The Mexican cellist Miguel Ángel Villeda Cerón is a fully rounded player, delivering nicely rounded tone that inspires confidence in his judgement. His colleagues are not yet quite at that level.

Pianist Daniel Lebhardt. Picture: Matthew Johnson

The Greek-Albanian violinist Greta Papa is another good player, but here she swapped her musicality for an almost permanent smile. Nothing wrong with a smile but here it seemed to mask nerves: at any rate, she lacked the conviction to balance her string colleague.

The Cypriot pianist Christos Fountos never really settled. Too many of his accents were hammered: accents need to steal up on the listener, not thump them between the eyeballs. His passage-work was also suspect, too many rapid runs not clearly articulated. He may well be a better soloist than collaborator.

There was little grandeur in Beethoven’s opening theme, but the scherzo was crisp with some neat touches of rubato. The andante promised to cast a spell several times, but it was interrupted by over-eager piano. The finale was much more even-tempered, with a pleasing accelerando into its coda.

Musicianship of a different order was on display after the interval. Benjamin Baker’s fluent violin allowed Schumann to speak to us directly through his Three Romances Op 94, never forcing the tone. The first emerged as a sinuous lament, the second evoked a beautifully songful line, and the third was sprightly. Daniel Lebhardt’s piano provided sympathetic support.

Violinist Charlotte Scott: “Luscious tone and rapt attention to detail”

Lebhardt also offered the first two extracts from Book 1 of Janacek’s On An Overgrown Path, ten evocations of childhood memories, which are being interwoven into festival programmes. They were gently intimate, with the odd surprise.

Brahms’s First Violin Sonata, Op 78 in G, brought the return of another festival favourite, Charlotte Scott, with Joseph Havlat as her pianist. They were exceptionally well-matched.

Havlat came to the fore whenever needed but never intruded on Scott’s luscious tone and rapt attention to detail. They clearly experienced the first movement’s surges of emotion together. Scott’s double-stopping accompaniment in the Adagio was as remarkable as her luscious melodic line. The duo’s exchanges in the closing rondo flowed smoothly and purposefully. This was playing of the highest calibre.

Review by Martin Dreyer

The festival continues with daily concerts until August 23. For full festival details and tickets, head to: www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, La Belle Époque, Welburn Manor Marquee, August 20

Pianist Katya Apekisheva

IN evocation of La Belle Époque – roughly 1871 to 1914 – the festival focus turned to French composers. A Fauré song cycle followed Debussy’s late violin sonata, with a second half devoted to Chausson: an extended song and what amounts to a double concerto.

Debussy’s Violin Sonata in G minor dates from 1917, the year before he died, so falls technically outside the belle époque. Nevertheless, its nostalgia harks back to an earlier age, more in regret for the ravages of war than self-pity at his terminal illness.

In a piece where you never quite know where the composer is going next, Charlotte Scott’s violin and Katya Apekisheva’s piano were alive to the many moods of the opening Allegro vivo.

There was dizzying staccato and pizzicato in the dry intermezzo, carrying more than a hint of its origins in fantasy. Apekisheva contrived to be both intimate and expansive at the start of the finale, with Scott scouring the lower regions of her instrument before soaring majestically into the concluding Presto. They remained in close harness, however, and revelled in the fireworks at the finish.

Violinist Charlotte Scott. Picture: Matthew Johnson

It is good that this festival remembers that the voice, too, is an instrument and includes vocal music especially when accompanied by more than ‘just’ a piano. Fauré was not the only composer to sense that extra instruments often suited the voice, and he expanded his 1892 song-cycle La Bonne Chanson by adding a string quintet (including double bass) six years later.

Conditions were particularly gusty for this recital. Even though mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley battled bravely, her words were not always easy to discern against the flapping of the tent. It became necessary to treat her voice as just another instrument in a septet – at which point the music became thoroughly satisfying.

Behind Verlaine’s nine poems lie strong undercurrents of romantic love, which suited Fauré’s affaire with Emma Bardac (who was to become Debussy’s wife). Huntley did her very best to explore the many facets of emotional entanglement, from early stirrings to full-blown ecstasy, reserving glorious full tone, for example, for ‘Ô Bien Aimée’ (O My Beloved) but toning it down for a confident C’est l’heure Exquise’ (Exquisite Hour).

The strings masterfully reflected the ebb and flow of excitement, not least in tremolo associated with a whirring flock of quails. Daniel Lebhardt’s piano carried the burden of the argument with subtlety and the instrumental postlude spoke of ultimate contentment, whatever the season.

Mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley: “Battled bravely with the gusty conditions”. Picture: Kaupo Kikkas

The wind had abated during the interval, when Huntley returned with Chausson’s Chanson Perpétuelle, this time with piano quintet in support. She brought fuller tone to Charles Cros’s picture of a woman abandoned in love and with it greater intensity, helped by individual instruments acting as her alter ego. Apekisheva’s agitated piano completed a well-rounded portrait.

Chausson’s Concert, Op 21 is a concertante piece for violin and piano (to all intents a concerto, here with Alena Baeva and Vadym Kholodenko respectively), with accompaniment from a string quartet rather than a full orchestra.

A bold duo-cadenza was the highlight of the portentous opening movement, followed by a pensive Sicilienne that threatened to wind up into a full-blown allegro but never quite managed it.

After a darkly elegiac Grave, which came to an anguished climax, all six players were asked to stretch themselves to the limit in the finale’s variation form. Marked ‘trés animé’, its thrills were much enhanced by the tautness of the ensemble. The soloists had previously predominated, but here they were subsumed into a glorious tutti.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Vienna!, Welburn Manor Marquee, 17/8/24

Violinist Charlotte Scott. Picture: Matthew Johnson

THE two Viennese Schools – the classical and the post-romantic – were brought into sharp contrast in this succulent programme, in which works by Mozart and Schubert framed music by the big three of the Second Viennese Schoool, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.

Charlotte Scott and Joseph Havlat took the stage for Mozart’s two-movement Violin Sonata in E minor, K.304, which he wrote in the wake of his mother’s death. Scott’s perceptive violin has long been a favourite with this audience, whereas Havlat’s piano is a relative newcomer, but they blended sympathetically.

They treated the Allegro’s development section as a clear attempt by the composer to exorcise his grief, its storminess bordering on anger here. The tender, sighing motif in the succeeding trio had great feeling, although the minuet – hardly a dance – was much more fiery.

Webern’s Langsamer Satz (‘slow movement’) in C minor is a student piece for string quartet. With Scott at the helm, the ensemble worked its way urgently to its central unison before a muted elegy and a satisfyingly tender final pianissimo.

In similar vein was Berg’s Adagio, a distillation for trio of the slow movement of his Chamber Concerto. Here Scott’s violin was joined by Matthew Hunt’s clarinet, the two phrasing sensitively while Ariel Lanyi’s piano was intuitive in initiating mood changes.

Webern saw the commercial sense of thinning down Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony from the original 15 players to a mere quintet. Here we had the rare chance to hear the version with flute and clarinet alongside piano trio.

Forthrightly led by Alena Baeva’s violin, with Lanyi at the piano, the ensemble delivered clarity and vigour in equal measure, with contrastingly elegant lines in the Adagio before an exciting climax.

But the best was, incredibly, yet to come. Schubert’s Fantasy in C major, D.934 is rightly regarded as an Everest of the violin and piano repertoire, not to be undertaken lightly. Benjamin Baker’s violin was on fire and he played with assuringly few glances at his score.

Vadym Kholodenko recorded this work last year with his regular duo partner Alena Baeva. So we were in the hands of experts: both clearly knew the score in every sense. There was an immediacy here that felt utterly spontaneous, from the teasingly enigmatic opening to the spine-tingling final Presto.

En route, Baker was amazingly fluent, throwing off the variations on Sei Mir Gegrüsst (I Greet You), a song of romantic yearning, with carefree abandon after a gaily dancing czardas: we had eloquent rubato, dazzling pizzicato, breathtakingly accurate moto perpetuo, it was all there.

Kholodenko was with him every step of the way, indeed spurring him on: their relish was intoxicating. They were not afraid to be coolly meditative in the Allegretto before a finale of heart-stopping virtuosity. This was a sensational performance, surely destined to be the highlight of the festival.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Series at All Saints’ Church, Helmsley, November 25

Violinist Charlotte Scott

MENTION the names Charlotte, Daniel, Jamie and Katya to any regular punter at the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival and they will instantly know who you mean.

For the uninitiated, this is a reference to violinist Charlotte Scott, pianist Daniel Lebhardt, cellist Jamie Walton and pianist Katya Apekisheva. All are core members of the resident team during the summer festival – so I shall use their first names here.

It was a special pleasure to welcome them back to our area as winter closes in, incidentally reminding us of treasures in store next summer (specifically, August11 to 24 2014). Here we enjoyed sonatas by Strauss and Rachmaninov, alongside bonbons by the latter and by Schubert.

Pianist Daniel Lebhardt

Schubert’s Adagio in E flat, D.897 (known by its publisher’s title, Notturno) is a touching piano trio. It begins pianissimo and is – rarely for Schubert – marked appassionato. With the benefit of hindsight, we can feel the nostalgia of a piece written during his 32nd and final year.

Here it was beautifully controlled, with Katya’s rippling piano a constant underlay and the dotted figure in its opening phrase still prominent in its brief chorale.

Rachmaninov stood at the heart of the evening. His Cello Sonata in G minor, a work of his late twenties and the last chamber music he was to write, brought a much-deserved spotlight on Jamie, with Katya still in support (although the actual spotlights flickered distractingly).

Cellist Jamie Walton. Picture: Matthew Johnson

Its first three movements showed varying degrees of agitation here. The opening grew in intensity, right up to its fiery conclusion. Scherzo and trio were neatly contrasted, the one nervy and staccato, the other smoothly melodious.

The slow movement teetered on the brink of sentimentality – but never crossed that line. The finale was quite different. Now in the major key, it reached unexpectedly sunny uplands, delivered with immense conviction right through to its furiously happy coda.

Rachmaninov’s Trio élégiaque in D minor (1893) dates from his late teens but took another two decades to reach its final form. It sounds much like Brahms. Its themes emerged clearly from Daniel’s piano, although Charlotte’s violin needed to resort to some muscularity to match his enthusiasm. Jamie’s cello remained firm and the ending was properly solemn.

Pianist Katya Apekisheva

Richard Strauss’s Violin Sonata is another early work, dating from his early twenties, with all the exuberance that implies. Daniel’s passionate piano moved a little too readily directly from piano to forte, with little between. Charlotte not merely withstood the challenge but soared sumptuously in both the outer movements.

The Andante between, marked ‘Improvisation’, was a different matter: an absolute gem. Its song-like melody elicited exceptionally sweet tone from Charlotte, with Daniel nobly self-effacing, and reached a rare ‘pin-drop’ moment at its close, the audience completely transfixed. It crystallised an evening of exceptional warmth – just what the doctor ordered, in fact.

Review by Martin Dreyer

* Next summer’s programme details are available at www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on ‘Waking’, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Welburn Manor Marquee, 26/9/23

Cellist Alice Neary: Festival trio with violinist Benjamin Baker and pianist Daniel Lebhardt

WHEN standards are already so high, it is hard to imagine that the best wine has been kept till last. Yet this final afternoon devoted to Schubert surpassed everything else I had experienced at this year’s North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. It was nothing short of sensational.

The ‘Trout’ Piano Quintet, D.667, was preceded by the B flat Piano Trio, D.898. The performers in the latter were violinist Benjamin Baker, cellist Alice Neary and pianist Daniel Lebhardt. Their ensemble was so taut, so larded with deep understanding and leavened with the utmost sensitivity to each other, that it seemed certain that they had collaborated before.

Within this delightfully Viennese pastry the ensemble gently drew attention to any number of Schubertian subtleties, teasing our tastebuds with the smallest of details, so that the total confection was constantly riveting.

When the breezy first movement’s second theme arrived, beautifully enunciated by Neary, it was impeccably emulated by Baker; they were in perfect agreement. The pause in the recapitulation was tantalisingly elongated, thanks to Lebhardt.

The slow movement was a lovely contrast, ruminative, thoughtful, even subdued. Its very intimacy drew us in, so that when the piano thinned down to a single line near the end, it was riveting in its simplicity.

Violinist Benjamin Baker: Hosting At The World’s Edge festival next month

The crisp Scherzo was balanced by an extremely smooth, legato Trio, while the frisky final Rondo was light on its feet, positively balletic. I do not expect to hear this account bettered. Equalled, perhaps, but never bettered. I would not be surprised if this threesome were to perform regularly outside this festival. It was no surprise to learn that Neary is to join Baker as a special guest at his New Zealand festival, At The World’s Edge, in October.

A completely new team took over for the ‘Trout’. It did not quite live up to its predecessor in the programme but was nevertheless extremely satisfying. Schubert wrote it while enjoying a holiday in the glorious countryside around Steyr, about 100 miles west of Vienna. So it was fitting that we should enjoy the piece in a rural setting.

The quintet, led by violinist Charlotte Scott, got off to an engaging start, with ensemble always taut. Her fellow string players were violist Simone van der Giessen, cellist Jamie Walton and bassist Siret Lust, with Christian Chamorel the eloquent pianist. But it was not until the second movement Andante that colours really began to emerge, highlighted by the close-knit duet between viola and cello, as also leavened by the rare streak of melancholy here.

After a brilliant scherzo, the variations that give the work its nick-name were slightly under-characterised, the song theme needing a touch more emphasis. Throughout I felt we required a little more from the double bass, which carries less well than the higher voices in this marquee. The finale was given its superb rhythmic impetus by Chamorel’s intelligent pianism.

This concert underlined the magic ingredient of the whole festival: spontaneity. Chamber music, at least outside London, is so often experienced at the hands of groups who repeat the same programme while touring. Many are extremely proficient. But they may lack the freshness that is always on display here, and the calibre of performers is unrivalled by any similar festival. Long may it thrive.

Review by Martin Dreyer

Violinist Charlotte Scott: Leading the quintet
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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s ‘visit to wonderland’ verdict on Living Backwards, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival

Violinist Benjamin Brunt

Living Backwards, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, St Michael’s Church, Coxwold, August 16

IF you are scratching your head over the title above, you deserve an explanation. It comes from Lewis Carroll, whose looking-glass themes are being explored in this year’s festival, which remains North Yorkshire’s best-kept musical secret. This was the fourth of the 14 programmes that could be heard daily until August 26.

Such titles are needed since no named group is performing. We know the musical menu in advance but must wait until the start of each event to discover which of the 27 resident players are involved.

This title? You may well not have encountered Ravel rubbing shoulders with Telemann, not to mention Dvořák with Biber. Throw in an intro by Saariaho, and put everything in reverse chronological order, and you have the outline of this wonderfully eclectic afternoon programme.

Benjamin Baker, who with fellow-violinist Charlotte Scott bore the brunt of the playing, opened with a tender account of Kaija Saariaho’s solo Nocturne, which she wrote in 1994, the same year as her violin concerto. Although intended as an in memoriam for Lutoslawski, it also commemorated the composer’s own death two months ago.

As Baker walked slowly away another memorial piece began, Ravel’s violin and cello sonata to honour Debussy. All but one of its four movements reflects Debussy’s joie de vivre, as did Alena Baeva and Jamie Walton’s playing.

Their warm, weaving dialogue in the opening and skittish scherzo, rapidly alternating bowing with pizzicato, were picked up again in the zestful finale, which bubbled with bonhomie. The slow movement, however, was properly elegiac: deliberate, bleak, and hushed at the close.

Dvorak’s Terzetto in C, for two violins and viola, brought back Baker and Scott, joined by Sascha Bota on the lowest part. They revelled in its unexpected demands. The scherzo’s emphatic return after a gentler trio was but a prelude to a theme and variations that were delivered with ever-increasing panache. Here were three superb virtuosos sharing their unbridled delight in unfamiliar repertoire – almost a trademark of this festival.

Gulliver’s Travels was Telemann’s response to Swift’s widely popular satire, a five-part suite for two violins. Once again it involved Baker and Scott: their palpable rapport was essential to the success of its quick-fire conversation, especially in the teasing ‘Brobdingnagian gigue’ and the busy dance of the ‘untamed Yahoos’.

Scott remained on stage to deliver a stylish, spellbinding account of the 16th and last of Biber’s Rosary sonatas, a chaconne that is the ultimate test of the Baroque violinist. A visit to Wonderland? Definitely.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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North York Moors Chamber Music Festival ventures Into The Looking Glass for fantastical fortnight with 30 musicians

Jamie Walton: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival artistic director and cellist, performing at the 2022 event. Picture: Matthew Johnson

EXPECT the unexpected when the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival invites next month’s audiences to peer into the looking glass.

Now in its 15th year, the summer festival will combine daring programming with an inclusive atmosphere in its fortnight run from August 13 to 26.

This year’s theme, Into The Looking Glass, takes inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s 1872 novel to “explore the psychology of the mind through the prism of music, conveying its various chapters with carefully curated music that takes the audience on an adventurous journey through many twists and turns”.

Having forged ahead to play to live audiences through the height of the Covid pandemic by hiring an open-sided, 5,000 sq.ft marquee, the festival retains the format this year in the grounds of Welburn Manor, near Kirkbymoorside.

Violinist Alena Baeva: Making her North York Moors Chamber Music Festival debut. Picture: Andrej Grilc

In addition, a series of lunchtime concerts will be presented in North York Moors National Park churches at St Michael’s, Coxwold; St Hilda’s, Danby; St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge, and St Mary’s, Lastingham.

From his North York Moors home, the festival’s artistic director, cellist Jamie Walton, has gathered around 30 international artists, such as pianist Katya Apekisheva, French horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider and violinists Charlotte Scott and Benjamin Baker.

Award-winning Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko and Russian-born, Luxembourg-based violinist Alena Baeva will make their festival debuts.

Works by Bach, Schubert, Strauss, Schumann, Debussy and Mendelssohn, among others, will be performed.

Walton says: “Although the festival is primarily chamber music in the classic sense, the success of last year’s appearance by folk singer Sam Lee and his band opened up our audiences to new styles and acts, while attracting Sam’s own fanbase to the world of classic music.

Jazz pianist and singer Alice Zawadzki : Undertaking Adventures Through Song at her Wonderland concert on August 19 at 6pm in the Festival Marquee at Welburn Manor

“This year, we’re delighted to welcome eclectic singer/violinist Alice Zawadzki and her jazz-infused trio for a concert entitled Wonderland, specially developed for the festival.

“Throughout this festival, audiences can expect the unexpected in a fantastical fortnight that showcases great talent, sublime music and spectacular locations. There’ll be loads of vitality and we’ll be pushing some boundaries.”

For the full festival programme, head to: www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com. Tickets for each main festival concert cost £15, free for under-30s. A season ticket for all 14 concerts is £150.

To book, email bookings@northyorkmoorsfestival.com, call 07722 038990 or visit www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com. Welburn Manor is sited west of Kirkbymoorside en route to Helmsley, off the A170, at YO62 7HH.

Who will be playing at the 2023 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival?

Daniel Lebhardt on the piano at the 2022 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. He returns for this summer’s Into The Looking Glass programme. Picture: Matthew Johnson

Violin: Alena Baeva; Benjamin Baker; Rachel Kolly; Emma Parker; Victoria Sayles; Charlotte Scott.

Viola: Sascha Bota; Meghan Cassidy; Scott Dickinson; Simone van der Giessen.

Cello: Rebecca Gilliver; Jack Moyer; Alice Neary; Tim Posner; Jamie Walton.

Double bass: Siret Lust; Frances Preston.

Piano: Katya Apekisheva; Christian Chamorel; Vadym Kholodenko; Daniel Lebhardt; Nikita Lukinov.

Clarinet: Matthew Hunt.

French horn: Ben Goldscheider.

Plus. . .

Alice Zawadski, singer/violinist; Misha Mullov-Abbado, bass, and Bruno Heinen, piano.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Charlotte Scott, Jamie Walton & Daniel Lebhardt, St Hilda’s Church, West Cliff, Whitby, March 4

Jamie Walton: Cellist and festival director. Picture: Matthew Johnson

OUTSIDE, a chill wind rattled in off the North Sea, but inside St Hilda’s this piano trio recital promoted by North York Moors Chamber Music was more like the first cuckoo in spring, heralding warmer times, especially the NYMCM’s own festival in August.

Trios by Beethoven and Mendelssohn were prefaced by duos featuring the violin and cello in turn. Charlotte Scott’s succulent violin put everyone in the mood straight away. Svendsen’s popular Romance, Op 26 of 1881, originally for violin and orchestra, can easily sound hackneyed. In her hands, it came up fresh and new, moving from dreamy elegy to full-blown romanticism. Daniel Lebhardt’s piano kept in close attendance.

Beethoven’s Piano Trio Op 70 No 2 in E flat has suffered by comparison with its companion piece, the ‘Ghost’ trio, if only because it lacks a nickname. Its generally warm aura reflects the friendship Beethoven enjoyed with the Hungarian Countess Erdödy, to whom Czerny claimed it was secretly dedicated.

The ensemble found tranquillity in its opening Poco sostenuto, where each instrument suggests a different key before it settles into E flat. There was a lovely transparency in the recapitulation, the quiet opening echoed magically. In the second movement’s double theme and variations – a device much favoured by Haydn but rarely by Beethoven – we heard the two dances, major and minor, coolly differentiated.

The succeeding, song-like Allegretto was notable for the conversation between unaccompanied strings and piano at its heart. The finale’s stormy centre had a powerfully symphonic feel, reaching a majestic climax. Donald Tovey describes it as “stupendous”. It certainly was here.

Jamie Walton brought his most mellow string tone to bear on Mendelssohn’s last Song without Words, Op 109 in D, written for cello and piano. He was particularly sumptuous in its central section and there was a nice tenuto before the recall of the opening.

Mendelssohn’s Second Piano Trio, No 2 in C minor, benefited especially from Lebhardt’s light-fingered pianism. The merging of the two themes in the energetic first movement was cleanly done and the outer sections of the ‘fairy’ Scherzo were extremely nimble.

In a hell-for-leather finale, however, the trio sounded as if in combat with one another and the triumphant chorale emerged with less clarity than it deserved. But one could only admire the commitment this represented, a virtue in evidence throughout the programme.

Review by Martin Dreyer

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival will run from August 13 to 26. Box office: 07722 038990 or northyorkmoorsfestival.com.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Spring, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival

Charlotte Scott: “Sweet-toned violin”

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival: Spring, Welburn Manor Marquee, August 19

ONCE again it was the ever-reliable, sweet-toned violin of Charlotte Scott that took the lead in this afternoon’s works, Beethoven’s ‘Spring’ Sonata, Op 24 in F, and Schumann’s Second Piano Trio, Op 80 in D.

Up to this point, the piano – a medium-size Steinway – had been the cause of several comments, mainly negative, about its tone. To these ears, it verged on the clangy; others thought it tinny.

Certainly James Baillieu, the admirable pianist here, had appeared to struggle to produce the kind of sound he wanted. But by now, something had changed, adjustments made no doubt, and the piano returned to something like mellowness.

F major has often been a key indicating the joys of nature, especially for Beethoven. Think of his Pastoral Symphony or the last string quartet. All that was here, in the nuances delivered by both players.

Cellist Jamie Walton. Picture: Matthew Johnson

The exposition was given a full repeat, just as it should be (but isn’t always). The mood music continued in the daydream of an Adagio, with the violin tone now more intimate and the pair enjoying gentle dialogue in the third of its three variations. After the comic Scherzo, with the violin intentionally lagging a beat behind, the rondo found the pair in wonderful harness, melting teasingly back into repetitions of the theme.

They were joined by cellist Jamie Walton for the Schumann. The early tremolos in the strings became tempestuous, but clarity never suffered, even through the long acceleration into the final climax of the first movement.

The cello was the first to break out of the introspective ruminations of the slow movement and Baillieu’s piano became a little over-dramatic before the return of the theme. But there was a delightful ebb and flow as little motifs were tossed around in the succeeding dance. The finale was lent an attractive urgency by the lightness of the semiquavers in all three voices, as the counterpoint fizzed.

Smiles all round.

Review by Martin Dreyer