Category Archives: Music

The Belcea Quartet were playing in Cambridge again a couple of days ago, in the wonderfully intimate setting of the Peterhouse Theatre. They are devoting themselves completely to Beethoven for a couple of years, playing all-Beethoven concerts, presumably working up … Continue reading →

Driving back and forth to the town dump with a load of garden waste, I unexpectedly caught on the radio  – with an innocent ear — a concert performance of (most of) the first Rasumovsky quartet. It was stunningly good. … Continue reading →

A very moving concert last night. In the small Peterhouse Theatre (a lovely space for intimate music), Menahem Pressler played Beethoven’s A-flat major sonata, Op. 110, Debussy’s Estampes, and then Schubert’s last piano sonata D. 960. He talked touchingly at the beginning … Continue reading →

Who knew retirement could be so busy? Two jointly written papers just done; a draft book to comment on in detail; four book reviews to do; a growing pile of things I want to read (Huw Price’s collected papers arrived today). Not … Continue reading →

I’ve mentioned here before my ever-growing admiration for the Belcea Quartet. Last week at a late night Prom concert they played the Schubert Quintet (with Valentin Erben as the second cello) with their usual intensity. You can hear it here for … Continue reading →

Who? Not a household name, to be sure. And a new name to me ten days ago. But we went to a concert in the startlingly starry Peterhouse Camerata Musica series to hear Viktoria Mullova playing three of the Beethoven sonatas. … Continue reading →

Thanks to Askonas Holt, her agents, three videos of Imogen Cooper playing at a concert in 2009 have just been posted on YouTube (the video isn’t HD, but the sound is just fine). There is a nice performance of Schubert’s … Continue reading →

I have been meaning for some time to write recommending the Belcea Quartet‘s Schubert recordings. There’s one double disk of the G major, Death and the Maiden, and the Quintet, and another disk of the Rosamunde Quartet, the E flat, … Continue reading →

If the header for this post means absolutely nothing to you, then read no further. But a few people might be interested in my impressions of these classy desktop speakers. Are they worth the not inconsiderable expense? A bit of … Continue reading →