Summer Festivals

[aeolium]

Perhaps rather early to be thinking about summer festival concerts but this was prompted partly by the lovely weather yesterday and the arrival of the Cheltenham Music Festival brochure. There are some interesting concerts scheduled there, not least a series of concerts on music written in particular years of the Great War. For instance the 1916 concert programme is as follows:

Schoenberg Piano Quintet 'The Iron Brigade'
Rebecca Clarke Lullaby & Grotesque for viola and cello
Bax Elegiac Trio for flute, viola and harp
Bridge Two Old English Songs for quartet
Bliss Pastoral for clarinet and piano
Busoni Albumblatt for flute & piano
Rachmaninov Etudes Tableaux op 39

Elsewhere there are also premieres for, inter al, Alexander Goehr (Horn Trio) and Hugh Wood (From the Pisan Cantos LXXXI). The Goehr work is in a programme with the Brahms Horn Trio, a Mozart piano quartet and the Bridge Phantasy piano quartet.

I'd be interested in any other information about other summer festivals, especially in the south-west and south Wales.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks for this info, aeols: anything in this year's Cheltenham brochure written by anyone born after the Second World War?

[aeolium]

A few, fhg, as well as works by composers born during the 2nd World War like Jonathan Harvey, David Fanshawe and John Tavener. There are works by Graham Fitkin, Lauri Supponen, Charlie Barber, Giles Swayne (b 1946!), Roxanna Panufnik, Hannah Kendall, Liz Lane inter al. There's also a concert of baroque music arising from the Jesuit missions in Bolivia and given by Florilegium.

I'm surprised the brochure is not up on the Cheltenham Festivals website but it should be soon so you can have a look more closely.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[LeMartinPecheur]

I'd be interested in any other information about other summer festivals, especially in the south-west and south Wales.

aeolium: may I strongly commend to you the Dante Quartet's festival in E Cornwall/ W Devon? I've been a regular for about 10 yrs - easy for me as it's on my doorstep - and it's always high quality and highly stimulating. Their website hasn't got any details for this year's festival yet but I'm sure it's happening (I think it's in July).

Last year they rolled up withsome random pianist called...who was it?... somebody called Lars Vogt! I believe he and their new violist Rachel Roberts are partners in a sense beyond the purely musical, and I can warmly recommend their CD of the Brahms sonatas and Schumann Marchenbilder Op 113 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sonata-Viola...0173275&sr=1-1

They've had another personnel change this year as their cellist for the last few years, Bernard Gregor-Smith (ex-Lindsays), has retired, but I hear his successor is very good, even though Bernard will be a tough act to follow.

[aeolium]

Thanks, LeMartinPecheur. Actually, there does seem to be some information about the 2012 Dante Summer Festival here, at least the concerts and the locations. I have seen the Dante Quartet several times at the Pittville Pump Room in Cheltenham and they have always impressed me.
Can I in turn mention the Carducci Quartet's annual mini-festival at Highnam in Gloucestershire in late May (details here)?