Sunday 25 September | 12:00pm

Doors 11:00am | Concert 12:00pm, ends c.1:00pm, no interval

Tickets £18 / £9 (under 25)

Gemma Rosefield, cello | Nicola Eimer, piano

Felix Mendelssohn – Variations Concertantes, op 17

Leoš Janáček – Pohádka

Frédéric Chopin – Sonata in G minor, op 65

Cellist Gemma Rosefield has been described by The Strad as ‘a mesmerising musical treasure’, and by the London Evening Standard as ‘a phenomenal talent’. Her recording for Hyperion of Charles Stanford’s complete works for cello and orchestra with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra was hailed as being ‘superbly played’ (BBC Music Magazine), whilst Gramophone wrote that Gemma ‘plays with disarming character and freshness’. Gemma is cellist with the acclaimed Ensemble 360 and the Leonore Piano Trio. She plays on a cello made in Naples in 1704 by Alessandro Gagliano, formerly owned and played by the Prince Regent.

Pianist Nicola Eimer performs as a soloist and chamber musician across Europe, Asia and America and has played at major UK venues including the Barbican and Wigmore Hall. She has won both the chamber music and solo awards in the Royal Overseas League Music Competition and enjoys an active partnership with the Swedish violinist Johan Dalene with whom she has made Radio 3 recordings for the BBC’s New Generation Artists scheme. Her 2019 album So Many Stars (with violinist Fenella Humphreys) was released on Stone Records and was Strad’s Recommended Recording of the month.

Their programme for the Granary comprises three brilliant and contrasting works for cello and piano. Janáček’s evocative Fairy Tale (Pohádka) dates from 1910 and is loosely based on scenes from The Tale of Tsar Berendyey by the Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky. Chopin’s Cello Sonata and Mendelssohn’s Variations Concertantes were written just 17 years apart. Mendelssohn’s sweet, simple theme and subsequent variations shows the influence of Mozart and Beethoven but there is a final forward-looking outburst of Romantic fervour at the end. Chopin’s great sonata is one of his last completed pieces. A composer best known for his miniatures (Mazurkas, Preludes, Waltzes), he is also supremely confident with the large-scale structural demands, and this sonata is full of glorious melodies developed with astonishing imagination.