Light, shade and sunshine - Chiaroscuro String Quartet and Gesualdo Six

Another new year, another hectic start! However I have found some time for concerts. The January edition of Skipton Music featured trailblazers Chiaroscuro String Quartet. The quartet perform with gut strings but that doesn't mean they're old fashioned! They generally perform standing up and certainly there is a lot of movement and vibrancy in their performances.

The programme was:

BEETHOVEN    String Quartet in D major Op.18, No. 3
MENDELSSOHN    String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 12
SCHUBERT    String Quartet No.14 in D minor, D810

I have a love/hate relationship with the Schubert 'Death and the Maiden' quartet (much like the Brahms piano quintet) and I have to say I wasn't expecting to enjoy it... but in fact this was the best performance of the evening.

There's another review on the Skipton Music page here.

Just as spring seems to be coming (judging by the bright blue sky outside my window), I have come back from a Leeds University School of Music lunchtime concert featuring the Gesualdo Six. I had clean forgotten who was performing and just about made it in time, for an hour of 'Fading': pure, clean, beautiful singing. Not normally my thing, but the Six are really superb and their programme of candlelight and compline - related music was a real freshener.

The programme - some of which I think is available on the group's website or Spotify - was:

Thomas Tallis (c.1505 – 1585) – Te lucis ante terminum
William Byrd (c.1540 – 1623) – Aspice Domine
Jonathtan Harvey (1939 – 2012) – The Annunciation
Thomas Tallis – If ye love me
Gerda Blok-Wilson (b.1955) – O Little Rose, O Dark Rose
Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179) – O Ecclesia, occuli tui
Arvo Pärt (b.1935)- Morning Star
Owain Park (b.1993) – Phos hilaron
Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963) – Seigneur, je vous en prie
Cheryl Frances-Hoad (b.1980) – The Promised Light of Life
Luca Marenzio (c.1553 – 1599) – Potrò viver io più se senza luce
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c.1525 – 1594) – Io son ferito, ahi lasso
David Bednall (b.1979) – Put out into the deep
Josef Rheinberger (1839 – 1901) – Abendlied

I really really liked 'O Little Rose, O Dark Rose' - thought that was just fantastic lyrically and musically.

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