Pianist Kathy Selby teams up with clarinettist Cathy McCorkill and cellist Julian Smiles for Selby and Friends’ third tour of the year called Magical Miniatures. The programme features bite-sized pieces of music written for various combinations of this classic trio of instruments. The programme includes music by three great German Romantic masters, Bruch, Brahms and Schumann, French impressionists Debussy and Fauré,…
When Carl Czerny learnt piano from Beethoven, he was about 10 years old. Young and impressionable, it is possible that Beethoven played to him a piano trio he was composing. The young Czerny apparently described it (in the vernacular of the day) as ‘spooky’, giving Beethoven’s Piano Trio in D major, opus 70 No 1 the nickname by which it continues…
An ensemble of two performers is about as intimate as it gets in chamber music. Professional musicians are accustomed to “making it work” with whomever they are required to perform. But when the musicians have chosen to work together over many years and relish the experience, there is extra frisson in the performance. Pianist Kathy…