I may have mentioned Percy Sherwood before: born 1866, English father, German mother, very high-profile career in Dresden, stranded in Britain in the summer of 1914, no career in England until his death in 1939. When I recorded Sherwood’s complete extant works for cello and piano, I had to start the CD notes from scratch, as practically nothing has ever been written about him. I went through all ... View Post
Selected Performances
There is more live music on my YouTube channel. Still available to view! ‘A Century of Music by British Women’, directed by Madeleine Mitchell, with music by Rebecca Clarke, Judith Weir, Helen Grime, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Thea Musgrave, Ruth Gipps, Errollyn Wallen, Grace Williams Link on St John’s, Smith Square website: A Century of Music by British Women (1921-2021) directed by ... View Post
At First Light
I have known composer Francis Pott for many years now, and 2019 saw the first musical fruits of our friendship. Francis writes music of great lyricism and complexity, and I had the extraordinary experience of giving two performances of Francis’s Cello Sonata, on consecutive days. The work is epic in its emotional scope and has been defined in the press as one of the finest British chamber works of ... View Post
Selected Performances 2018/19
Saturday 15 September 2018, 6.30pm Philharmonic Hall, Samara Camille Saint-Saëns, Cello Concerto no. 1, with the Samara State Philharmonic Orchestra Sunday 16 September 2018, 2pm Philharmonic Hall, Tolyatti Gabriel Fauré, Élégie, with the Tolyatti State Philharmonic Orchestra Monday 17 September 2018, 5pm Tolyatti Recital of English music for cello and piano, including Ralph Vaughan ... View Post
Sea-Croon – music from The 1920s
My quest for repertoire for cello and piano that needs a wider audience continues. I have recently been working on a CD for EM Records of works from the 1920s. All decades are arguably equally ripe for exploration, but the 1920s were a period of musical ferment. The Great War had inevitably left its mark, and in the cello repertoire we see engagement with the modernism prevalent on the Continent, ... View Post
Rawsthorne on CD
A number of years ago, I recorded two chamber works by Alan Rawsthorne: the Studies on a Theme by Bach for string trio, and the unpublished Oboe Quartet no. 1. The disc on which they appeared is sadly no longer available, but I am delighted to say that Steve Plews of Prima Facie Records has rereleased those works on a new Alan Rawsthorne portrait disc. I took the opportunity to record ... View Post