Classical

Masterpieces of the Classical repertoire played with flair and imagination. Great works with a dash of the unusual – CMC style classics.

In the beginning our concerts including voice were a significant innovation in itself. The world has moved on, but these programmes remain amongst CMC’s most popular, especially where the voice is that of the Indian Nightingale, Patricia Rozario. We like to vary the texture and include solos and duos. It’s the way concerts used to be, and it helps us pursue variety within tradition as well.

The Rare Music Series is devoted to providing a showcase for great works that have disappeared from mainstream performance. CMC researches these forgotten gems, breathes fresh life into them and puts them back on stage. Notable rediscoveries to date include little known works by composers such as Fibich, Granados, Liszt, Mahler, a number of Latin American composers, and even Mozart.

Started in 2003, the inaugural concert at the Purcell Room featured Robert Volkmann’s Trio in B flat minor – ‘the greatest work Liszt never wrote’ (The Independent). The second concert featured the piano quintet of Ludomir Rozycki – a masterpiece of Romantic opulence from before the First World War. The Rare Music Series set these two works in a wonderful context showing them to best advantage.

Premieres are rare in this event – Second Glance is more interested in what happens post-premiere! So much new music has just one performance and is then neglected – Second Glance aims to put that right, providing a platform for music to be heard again, championing it and promoting it beyond the premiere.

Second Glance is a snapshot of the best and most exciting new work in the UK, displaying the talent and brilliance of British composers.

The Mariko Duo is Japanese pianist Yoshiko Endo and British pianist Mark Troop. With a joint love of Japanese culture and romantic piano music they were destined to come together after sharing the same college (London’s Guildhall School of Music) and the same teacher (Paul Berkowitz).

The Mariko Duo plays all the standard duos – Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Debussy – but likes to throw in an occasional dash of the unusual, for instance wonderful works by Constant Lambert, Graham Fitkin and Hubert Du Plessis – and many more!