Those of you who enjoyed some of the concerts in Joana and Martin’s first Islington Festival last year will have been invited to their 2022 launch concert in December – at which they played Richard Strauss’ violin sonata. For those of you who don’t know the piece, it is somewhat of a tour de force. I was so bowled over by it that, knowing that we now had access to a rather splendid piano in the Highgate School Chapel, I immediately booked them to play it again for us – and alerted Father Robert!
To book tickets, go here.
Sonata for Violin in E-flat Major, Op. 18
Strauss had already composed a number of chamber pieces when, at only 23, he wrote the sonata for Violin in E-flat Major. Although sonata experts would not quite rank it with pieces by Beethoven or Brahms, it has remained very popular is frequently both performed and recorded.
But rather than being a precursor of things to come for Strauss, at that point he effectively abandoned chamber music in favour of the symphonic fantasies, tone poems and opera for which he is best known. Very possibly this change of direction was occasioned by his burgeoning love affair with the operatic soprano Pauline de Ahna whom he later married. (She was, reportedly, both eccentric and difficult but, maybe for that reason, was a great source of inspiration for Strauss and they remained happily married until their deaths, within eight months of each other, in 1950.)
To complement the Strauss Joana and Martin have chosen three other violin piano duos – Mozart’s Sonata No. 27 in G major, K. 379 (of which more anon), two pieces from the hugely talented Lili Boulanger, whose career was cruelly cut short in 1918 by her death from intestinal tuberculosis at only 24 – and a Romance by the all but forgotten 19th century German composer, Luise Adolpha le Beau.
For more details and to book tickets, go here.
And Martin and Joana will be with us again in late May – in a very different repetoire….
Highgate Society Sunday Lunchtime concerts
The Highate Society’s first lunchtime concert last Sunday was a great success with Sol Grimshaw and his group delighting everyone with a selection of gypsy jazz and great American song tunes. Delighting everyone so much that rumour has it that they may be back in Highgate again over the summer, so watch this space!
The second Sunday Lunch concert will be on May 22nd and will feature Martin and Joana playing Viennese café music – tearing at our heart strings with Mendelssohn, Dvorak and Fritz Kreisler. More details to come in due course.
Leave a Reply