Preview - Brahms Unwrapped at Kings Place
Published: 29 December, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
Nearly three dozen recitals, concerts, study days and workshops are to be devoted to composer Johannes Brahms during the coming year at the Kings Place arts venue in King’s Cross.
Its programme Brahms Unwrapped involves a selection of his piano works, string quartets and piano quintets, those wonderful clarinet pieces, cello sonatas, choral works, songs and orchestral pieces.
The series follows hard on the heels of Beethoven Unwrapped in 2010 and Mozart Unwrapped over the past year.
“I’m delighted that the next instalment of our Unwrapped season focuses on that giant of Western classical music, Johannes Brahms,” says Peter Millican, chief executive of Kings Place.
“Holding the rigours of the classical structure and the unbridled passion and imagination of the Romantic era in perfect balance, Brahms is the pivotal figure in Western music.
What strikes me about the musicians involved in the season is their unalloyed love and enthusiasm for his chamber music.
“There’s a sense that Brahms has a unique understanding and love for their instrument or voice, holds them in warm embrace and gives every single one of them a chance to shine.”
Soloists include violinists Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Anthony Marwood; cellists Natalie Clein and Christopher Richter; violinists Maxim Rysanov and Philip Dukes; and pianists Mikhail Rudy and Ivo Varbanov.
Charles Owen and the fabulous Katya Apekisheva are playing the piano works for four hands while clarinettists Anthony Pay and Mark van de Wiel are performing the incomparable clarinet works with Endymion.
The Orion Quartet is taking on the quartets, joined by Susan Tomes for the piano quintets.
The Sixteen has two programmes of duets and quartets and a choral concert culminating in the Requiem.
“But Brahms Unwrapped is much more than a concert series,” says Millican. “There’s an opportunity for our audience to come and sing the Brahms Requiem, a children’s concert, insight introductions to works being performed and an enriching Study Day series.”
• Brahms Unwrapped, Kings Place, York Way, N1, 020 7520 1490, www.kingsplace.co.uk