2019/20 CONCERTS: Sundays 3:00pm, Holywell Music Room

3 November 2019

Pavel Haas String Quartet

Beethoven & Tchaikovsky

Beethoven Quartet op 59 no 3
Tchaikovsky Quartet no 3

The Pavel Haas Quartet is a world-class ensemble renowned for their outstanding concerts and recordings, 'the blend of sound in the group is better than ever'. This is a very special opportunity to hear the Quartet perform in the intimacy of the Holywell Music Room.  

Beethoven's opus 59 quartets were commissioned by his patron Count Razumovsky and the third of these is one of his most radiant and most frequently performed of all his works of this genre. Tchaikovsky's highly expressive third quartet is a work of contrasting moods ending in joyful celebration. He dedicated it to the memory of a virtuoso violinist who was a fellow professor at the Moscow Conservatory.

Pavel Haas Quartet: Veronika Jarůšková & Marek Zwiebel, violins, Jiří Kabát, viola, Peter Jarůšek, cello

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or book for all seven concerts with substantially discounted season tickets

1 December 2019

Mozart & more

Britten Oboe Quartet

Moeran Phantasy Quartet
Lutyens Driving Out The Death
Françaix Cor Anglais Quartet
Mozart Adagio K580a for Cor Anglais Quartet
Knussen Cantata
Mozart Oboe Quartet K370

Nicholas Daniel is one of the world's great oboe players who performs with a string ensemble of friends as the Britten Oboe Quartet. They bring an attractive and informal programme.  

As well as Mozart's great oboe quartet we will hear Nicholas Daniel's own completion of Mozart’s elegiac fragment K580a. Knussen's Cantata and the delightful Cor Anglais Quartet of Jean Françaix have a particular resonance for Daniel so we can be assured of an interesting and engaging afternoon.

Britten Oboe Quartet: Nicholas Daniel, oboe and cor anglais, Jacqueline Shave, violin, Clare Finnimore, viola, Caroline Dearnley, cello

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12 January 2020

Doric String Quartet

Haydn Beethoven & Sibelius

Haydn Quartet op 33 no 2
Sibelius Quartet 'Voces Intimae' op 56
Britten 3 Divertimenti (1936)
Beethoven Quartet in F op 18 no 1

Firmly established as one of the leading string quartets of its generation, the Doric String Quartet receives enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics across the globe. Alongside their main season concerts the Quartet also has a busy international festival schedule.  

Their programme opens with Haydn's popular 'Joke' quartet. Sibelius's 'Intimate Voices' quartet reflects the personal cross-roads the composer had reached in his transition from a romantic to a modernist composer and Britten's Divertimenti provide a refreshing preface to one of Beethoven's much-loved quartets.

Doric String Quartet: Alex Redington & Ying Xue, violin, Hélène Clément, viola, John Myerscough, cello

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16 February 2020

From Bach to Nielsen

Atéa Quintet

Zemlinsky Humoresque
Bozza Divertimento
Tuur Arkitektoniks
Briccialdi Quintet in B flat
Bach Selections from Goldberg Variations
Nielsen Wind Quintet

The Atéa Quintet is one of the foremost British Wind Quintets. They will be playing a diverse programme of delights including music by Bach and Nielsen whose wind quintet, a work of contrasting moods, was inspired by the personalities of the players for whom it was written.  

Internationally acclaimed, the Atéa Quintet became double prize winners at the 2015 Carl Nielsen International Chamber Music Competition and are Associate Ensemble in Residence at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Atéa Quintet: Alena Walentin, Flute, Anna Hashimoto, Clarinet, Ashley Myall, Bassoon, Chris Beagles, Horn, Philip Haworth, Oboe

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22 March 2020

Schubert & Haydn

Maggini String Quartet

Haydn Quartet op 64 no 5 'The Lark'
Rawsthorne Quartet no 1
Schubert Quartet in G D887

The Maggini Quartet has long been a favourite of Oxford audiences and continues to be much admired by chamber music playing enthusiasts. In addition to two great classical masterpieces they bring a work drawn from the English quartet repertoire that the Maggini have very much made their own.  

Schubert's late G major Quartet is a work of symphonic scale and expression, a masterpiece. Rawsthorne's Quartet no. 1 is cast as a concise theme and variations and Haydn's 'Lark' Quartet has been so named from the soaring violin theme with which it opens.

Maggini String Quartet: Julian Leaper & Ciaran McCabe, Violin, Martin Outram, Viola, Michal Kaznowski, Cello

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26 April 2020

A Baroque Celebration of Spring

Flauti d'echo

Programme to include pieces by Monteverdi,
John Blow, Thomas Morley, Purcell, Handel,
Bach, Vivaldi and contemporary composers

Flauti d'echo is a truly outstanding young recorder duo who are joined by talented early music players in a programme that celebrates the arrival of spring. Cheeky cuckoos, blossoming flowers, dancing shepherds and buffeting winds frame a beautiful pastoral aria by J.S. Bach. 

Formed by recorder players Tabea Debus and Olwen Foulkes, Flauti d’echo create repertoire for the recorder through their own arrangements of fifteenth-eighteenth century music and new commissions. They won the Nancy Nuttal Early Music Prize for Chamber music in 2016. They have performed in chamber music festivals including Newbury Spring Festival and in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Handel&Hendrix House London, St. John’s Smith Square, and Somerset House.

Flauti d’echo: Olwen Foulkes & Tabea Debus, recorders, with Camilla Morse-Glover, cello and Benedict Williams, harpsichord

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17 May 2020

Schumann Piano Quintet

Alasdair Beatson & friends

Dvořák Piano Quartet in D op 23
Hindemith String Trio no 2
Suk Elegie op 23
Schumann Piano Quintet

The highly accomplished pianist and chamber musician Alasdair Beatson is joined by a quartet of leading string players in a varied programme framed by Dvořák's lovely D major Piano Quartet and Schumann's magnificent Piano Quintet.  

Alasdair Beatson works prolifically as soloist and chamber musician and has performed at London’s Kings Place and Wigmore Hall and at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. He has also taken part in at festivals in Aldeburgh, Resonances and Ernen and collaborates with some of the foremost soloists, the Doric String Quartet, the Gringolts Quartet and the Nash Ensemble.

For this concert he is joined by his much respected chamber music playing friends, Sini Simonen & Beatrice Philips, violin, James Boyd, viola and Pierre Doumenge, cello.

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