A delightful unexpected surprise this week. I quite serendipitously discovered, just the preceding day, that Elisabeth Brauss was giving a short concert on Thursday for the Cambridge University German Society. And some last minute tickets were available to non-members. So off we went. (An unusual experience too, to find ourselves the only ancients at a recital!)
Elisabeth was just wonderful, playing with such verve and colour and subtlety and evident enjoyment. And we in our turn hugely enjoyed her first piece, Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. She is playing this soon at Wigmore Hall, together with a Schubert sonata and Schumann’s Carnaval. For Thursday, she chose the Schumann — which is obviously great fun to play, and pleased her enthusiastic audience. But it is far from my favourite piece, and I would so love to have heard her Schubert.
So here she is playing his Piano Trio No. 1 four years ago, with her now frequent duo partner Noa Wildschut, and the cellist Alexander Warenberg, all ridiculously young. Just astonishing. And also in these dark times, a moment of beauty and hope.