RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet

Catherine Leonard, violin

Hugh Tinney, piano

Ian Wilson from the Book of Longing  

Chopin Barcarolle in F sharp, Op 60

Galina Grigorjeva  Infinity Canon for string quartet  

Ravel Violin Sonata in G

Franck Piano Quintet in F minor

As Ireland enters its Presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2013, the occasion provides an opportunity to celebrate the magnificent body of chamber music that has emerged from all across the Union.  While many famous pillars of this repertoire are associated with France, Germany and Austria, this rich pool of music, in all its diversity, has had many other sources too, in the Mediterranean, Slavic and Nordic countries, not to mention the two islands on the North-West tip!  This series straddles these diverse regions in a survey of some of the great chamber music from the past five centuries and our own.

Passion runs through the first concert of the series, from Ian Wilson’s sacred and profane from the Book of Longing to Franck’s impassioned, intense Piano Quintet, one of the three chamber music masterpieces he wrote in the last twelve years of his life.  Chopin’s Barcarolle and Galina Grigorjeva’s Infinity Canon in their different ways mix human passion with the transcendental, and Ravel’s celebrated late Violin Sonata offers a contrastingly earthy passion in its Blues movement.  This sonata was premiered by the great violinist Enescu, whose own work features in the next concert.

Presented by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra