IMS Prussia Cove celebration concert

Hilary Tunstall-Behrens’ 90th BirthdaySUNDAY 15 JANUARY 2017, 6 .45PM

Founder: Sándor Végh Hon CBE | Artistic Director: Steven Isserlis CBE | Artistic Advisers: Ralph Kirshbaum and Sir András Schiff Programming Director and Co-Founder: Hilary Tunstall-Behrens | Patron: HRH The Duke of Kent KG | President: Sir Simon Rattle CBE

Erich Höbarth VIOLIN

Gerhard Schulz VIOLIN

Thomas Riebl VIOLA

Steven Isserlis CELLO

Ralph Kirshbaum CELLO

Sir András Schiff PIANO

Dénes Várjon PIANO

MESSAGE FROM HRH DUKE OF KENT, PATRON OF IMS PRUSSIA COVE

I have been fortunate enough to visit the seminars at IMS Prussia Cove on several occasions, and each time I have been struck by the integrity and energy of the musicians’ commitment to realising the essence of the masterpieces which the great composers have handed down to us. It is remarkable that the seminars have lasted for no fewer than forty-five years, and chief among those to whom the credit belongs for this unbroken record of achievement and success is Hilary Tunstall-Behrens, whose vision inspired the project from the start. It is a happy coincidence that the duration of the seminars is exactly half the span of Hilary’s life, and on this special occasion it is a pleasure to salute them both.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

SONATA NO.2 FOR VIOLA DA GAMBA AND KEYBOARD IN D MAJOR BWV1028

Steven Isserlis CELLO · Sir András Schiff PIANO

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

HUNGARIAN MELODY IN B MINOR D.817

Sir András Schiff PIANO

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

VIOLIN SONATA IN A MAJOR K526

Erich Höbarth VIOLIN · Sir András Schiff PIANO

Interval (30 minutes)

György Kurtág (1926–)

AZ HIT (FAITH) SOUVENIR DE BALATONBOGLÁR – BIRTHDAY GREETING TO JUDITH SCHERTER PILINSZKY JÁNOS: GÉRARD DE NERVAL

Steven Isserlis CELLO

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

PIANO QUARTET NO.1 IN G MINOR OP.25

Gerhard Schulz VIOLIN · Thomas Riebl VIOLA

Ralph Kirshbaum CELLO · Dénes Várjon P IANO

IMS Prussia Cove are extremely grateful to the musicians for giving this evening’s special celebratory concert.Would patrons please ensure that mobile phones are switched off. Please stifle coughing as much as possible and ensure that watch alarms and any other electronic devices which may become audible are switched off.

Celebration concert for Hilary Tunstall-Behrens’ 90th Birthday

HR

H D

uke of Kent w

ith Hilary Tunstall-Behrens during

a visit to the Masterclasses. ©

Miles Essex 2014

MESSAGE FROM HILARY TUNSTALL-BEHRENS

I am deeply grateful to the maestri of IMS Prussia Cove for tonight’s concert. Many of them first attended the seminars as students and now continue to support our founder the Hungarian violinist Sándor Végh’s vision and musical idealism as professors at the masterclasses, and as participants in our open chamber music seminars.

I first met Sándor Végh in the summer of 1965, playing in his Gulbenkian festival violin masterclasses in Cascais, Lisbon. He invited me to study with him in Düsseldorf and Cervo and we became good friends. On his first ever visit to Cornwall at my invitation, Sándor fell in love with the Atlantic coastline, the stone hedges and the standing stones, with the remoteness of the Penwith peninsula and inevitably perhaps, being Hungarian, with its potatoes. Sándor wanted to preserve and celebrate the great mid-European traditions of music making and teaching, and by happy coincidence this creative impulse resonated with my family who owned the perfect place for such an endeavour.

My grandfather had left Germany in 1872 and in 1875 slowly began to piece together the estate. My father and his eldest brother built an arts and crafts house in 1911, and now for well over a century there has been an ethos of conservation, and a determination to maintain and preserve the beautiful coastline of the Porth-en-Alls Estate and to save it from the blight of development that so many other coastal areas in Cornwall have suffered.

And so two powerful strands of idealism came together and furthermore the estate offered IMS Prussia Cove an ideal way of living that enhanced the experience of the musicians; the numerous cottages where musicians and professors could live close by, and the fives court that offered a magnificent communal dining area with a small bar, where everyone could sit together at scrubbed pine tables and be served by the volunteers who in so many ways and so generously support our activities. Like the rest of the world with all its clamour and demands the tarmacadam stops at the top of the drive.

It gives me more pleasure than I can possibly express that when musicians return to the seminars after many years they say ‘but Hilary, nothing has changed’. This would not have been achieved without the unstinting support of my brother and his family and now my nephew and his family. Nor would it have been achieved without the extraordinary artistic, financial, administrative and audience support that we now enjoy. It makes me very happy to know that IMS Prussia Cove will continue to thrive long after I am gone. Thank you all so much.

© C

harles Best 2016

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)Sonata No.2 for Viola da Gamba and Keyboard in D major BWV1028 (c.1720)AdagioAllegroAndanteAllegro

The majority of Bach’s chamber works were composed during the period of his employment as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, from 1717–1723. Curiously enough, Bach seems to have shown little interest in the most prevalent form of Baroque chamber music – the trio sonata, in which two melody instruments wove a contrapuntal dialogue supported by a continuo part for harpsichord, with its bass line often reinforced by a viola da gamba or cello. Only towards the end of his life did Bach write a great work of that kind: the trio sonata for flute, violin and keyboard which forms part of his Musical Offering. By that time, in the late 1740s, the age of the trio sonata was to all intents and purposes over.

It was not so much the trio sonata’s texture that seems to have held little appeal for Bach, as its instrumental layout. Rather than employ two melody instruments, he preferred to assign one of the melodic strands to the keyboard player’s right hand. His six sonatas for violin and keyboard, and the three with viola da gamba, are essentially trio sonatas written in such a way as to allow for their performance by only two players. However, the first of the viola da gamba sonatas also exists as a work for two flutes and continuo which probably represents the music’s initial scoring, and it’s possible that the two companion-works had similar origins.

Unlike his six violin sonatas with keyboard, Bach’s three gamba sonatas do not form a coherent group. Their composition seems to have been widely spaced, and they were probably intended either for Prince Leopold, who was a keen gamba player, or for Christian Ferdinand Abel – a virtuoso player in the court orchestra, and an important composer in his own right. By the time Bach composed these pieces, the viola da gamba was more or less obsolete, and had been replaced by the cello. Bach,

however, clearly relished the more plangent tone of the older instrument, as we can see not only from these three sonatas, but also from a number of his arias with obbligato gamba – notably, ‘Es ist vollbracht’ from the St John Passion, and ‘Komm süsses Kreuz’ from the St Matthew Passion.

The first two of the gamba sonatas are in what is known as sonata da chiesa, or church-sonata, form – that is, with two pairs of alternately slow and fast movements. The D major second sonata concentrates its weight on its latter half. Not that the first pair of movements is any sense lightweight – indeed, the opening Adagio has the two instruments in contrapuntal imitation throughout – but their scope is comparatively small. The smoothly flowing first Allegro is alone among the quick movements of the sonatas in being cast in binary form, with a repeat of each half. A tinge of the minor in the closing bars of both sections casts no more than a passing shadow over the music’s genial surface. The following B minor Andante, on the other hand, is a sarabande of profound melancholy, and one whose melody seems to unfold in a constant state of evolution. This is one of the pieces in the series that clearly reveals the music’s trio-sonata origins: the passages in which the keyboard instrument fulfils a purely accompanimental role are written in figured-bass notation, leaving the player to ‘realise’ the harmony above the bass line.

The scintillating finale unfolds in an almost constant stream of semiquavers; but towards the end, as though determined to break free from the regular pattern of the music, the keyboard instrument launches into a rhapsodic passage, to the lightest of staccato accompaniments from his partner. Not wanting to be outdone, the gamba lets loose a virtuoso display of its own, with figuration more rapid that anything that has been heard hitherto, before normality is restored with the final reprise of the initial theme. © Misha Donat 2017

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)Hungarian Melody in B minor D.817 (1824)Schubert spent two extended periods in Hungary, in 1818 and 1824, when he was employed to teach the two daughters of Count Esterházy von Galánta at his summer residence in Zseliz (now Želiezovce, in Slovakia). It was on his second visit there that Schubert composed some of his greatest works for piano duet: the so-called ‘Grand Duo’ D.812, the Variations in A flat D.813 and the ‘Divertissement à la hongroise’ D.818. He may have intended them for the two countesses to play together, or for himself to perform with the younger girl, Karoline, with whom he seems to have fallen deeply in love.

According to Karl Schönstein, who was one of the finest Schubert singers of the day, the composer “picked up the theme of the ‘Divertissement à la hongroise’, a Hungarian song, in Zseliz, in Count Esterházy’s kitchen, where a Hungarian kitchen-maid sang it, and Schubert, who had just come back with me from a walk, heard it in passing.” Schöstein doesn’t pinpoint the melody in question, but it is likely to have been the rondo theme of the concluding movement from Schubert’s piece. It was presumably just before composing the ‘Divertissement’ that Schubert wrote his ‘Hungarian Melody’ D.817 – a much shorter and more intimate piece for solo piano using the same theme.

Liszt made his own two-handed transcription of the ‘Divertissement à la Hongroise’, under the title of Mélodies hongroises, and so Schubert’s tiny, hauntingly beautiful, solo piano piece can be seen as the font from which Liszt’s famous series of Hungarian Rhapsodies sprang. © Misha Donat 2017

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)Violin Sonata in A major K526 (1787)Allegro moltoAndantePresto

Mozart’s last large-scale violin sonata comes from the summer of 1787, when Don Giovanni – the next work entered by the composer in the thematic catalogue of his works – was taking shape. Working simultaneously on compositions of strongly contrasting character was something Mozart evidently liked doing: from earlier in the same year we have the String Quintets in C major and G minor, as well as the Musical Joke and Eine kleine Nachtmusik; before that, the Piano Concertos K466 and K467, and then K488 and K491, and¸ in 1788, the G minor and Jupiter symphonies. The A major Violin Sonata, K526, is a predominantly sunny, joyous work, with little of the opera’s dark chromatic harmony, though it has its own shadows and ambiguities.

The rhythmically subtle opening Allegro is a galloping 6/8, a time signature much more often found in Mozart’s finales (the String Quartet K458 is another rare example of a first movement in 6/8). It has the natural, seemingly effortless fluency of Mozart’s quick music in A major; everything is melody. The same is true of the sparkling, playful finale, a melodically rich moto perpetuo where tune and accompaniment sometimes merge contrapuntally, and which constantly surprises us by its twists and turns (including a long-breathed cantabile passage in F sharp minor) and its returns to the headlong opening theme, never quite in the place we expected them to be.

These exuberant movements enclose one of Mozart’s strangest, most ambiguous andantes – music of spare, often two-part texture whose calm Bach-like progress makes the modulations and the frequent changes from major to minor all the more striking. Einstein says of it that it “attains an equilibrium of art and soul that is as if God the Father brought all motion everywhere to a halt for a moment so that humanity might savour the bitter-sweetness of existence”. © David Cairns 2017

INTERVAL

PROGRAMME NOTES

Please check that your mobile phone is switched off, especially if you used it during the interval.

György Kurtág (1926–)Az hit (Faith) Between 1963 and 1968 Kurtág composed a song cycle (or Concerto Spirituale) entitled ‘The Sayings of Peter Bornemisza’; its four movements – ‘Confession’, ‘Sin’, ‘Death’, ‘Spring’ – represent an important spiritual journey for the composer. ‘Az hit’ is a reworking for solo cello of the last movement, ‘Spring’, the words of the song printed beneath the notes of the cello part. Peter Bornemisza was a persecuted reform preacher in sixteenth-century Hungary whose powerful sermons have survived in written form. The music of ‘Az hit’ owes something also to the singing of a Hungarian choir whom Kurtág had encountered by chance on an evening walk. Passing by a church, he heard coming from within a compelling, jagged mode of singing that made a huge impression on him.

The ‘faith’ of the title is a raw, burning faith, the strength and urgency of which propels the piece. The opening words – ‘Faith is not a dream, but a living animal which bites God’ – sum up the intense spirit of this work; but equally significant are the closing words, signalling the return to light symbolised by spring: ‘Confidence in the heart, which allows the sinner to believe in his own redemption.’

Souvenir de Balatonboglár – Birthday greeting to Judith ScherterSouvenir de Balatonboglár was written for the occasion of the artist and poet Judith Scherter’s 58th birthday – hence the 5/8 of the opening. This calm, reflective piece is inspired by the naïve style of Scherter’s painting (examples of which are printed on the covers the first four books of Signs, Games and Messages). The only musical tension comes from the constant oscillation between major and minor thirds, creating a gently wistful atmosphere.

Pilinszky János: Gérard de NervalGérard de Nerval was a nineteenth-century French poet whose tragic life ended in suicide. Pilinszky’s poem (rather literally translated here) is bleak:

A riverside which is not a riverside. A memory which has never been a sunrise, Then something of a moat and a fiery pin in the head.

Kurtág’s response, while full of inner pain, is also tender, its chromatic falling sighs evoking a memory of the Sarabande of Bach’s Fifth Suite. (Only the final pizzicato chord evokes the ‘fiery pin in the head’.) Perhaps this work confirms Pilinszky’s view of art:

“My favourite thought is that art is engagement immobile, motionless commitment, and real drama is … drama immobile, motionless drama. The kind of movement, action that reminds one most of the stars’ changing of places. Movement and motionlessness, that is, at the same time… Every great work penetrates into where it can do no more.”

© Steven Isserlis 2017

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)Piano Quartet No.1 in G minor Op.25 (1861)AllegroIntermezzo: Allegro, ma non troppoAndante con motoRondo alla zingarese: Presto

Brahms’s lifelong fascination with the gipsy style had its origins in a concert tour he undertook as a teenage prodigy, together with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Rémenyi. (That tour did not, however, take them to Hungary, and Brahms is not known ever to have set foot there.) Right at the end of his life, Brahms heard the thirteen-year-old Bronislaw Huberman play his Violin Concerto, and apparently promised to write a gypsy fantasy for him. The promise, alas, was never fulfilled, but traces of the gypsy style can be heard in the finale of all four of Brahms’s concertos. The last movement of the Op.25 Piano Quartet may be the most spectacular example of Brahms’s fondness for goulash, but it was by no means the last time he served up the dish: there is no shortage of paprika in the ‘Zigeunerlieder’ Op.103 – or, indeed, the famous ‘Hungarian Dances’.

Brahms was not the first great composer to have been attracted by the Hungarian gypsy style. Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies are unlikely to have held much appeal for him, but he must have known the ‘Gypsy Rondo’ finale of Haydn’s G major Piano Trio of 1795, as well as Schubert’s piano duet ‘Divertissement à la Hongroise’ in the same key – G minor – as his Op.25 Piano Quartet. In common with Schubert’s, Brahms’s finale contains a vivid evocation of the sound of a cimbalom; but it is surely the Haydn, with its ‘stamping’ episode in G minor, that is the spiritual forefather of Brahms’s ‘Rondo alla zingarese’.

It was with his G minor Piano Quartet that Brahms chose to introduce himself to the Viennese public in the dual role of composer and pianist shortly after his arrival there in the autumn of 1862. He had completed it, together with an A major companion-piece, some three years earlier, and had sent the two works for approval to Joseph Joachim. The great violinist was not altogether convinced by the opening movement of the G minor work, but was full of praise for the remainder of the score – and in particular, the ‘gypsy’ finale. Referring to his own Hungarian roots, Joachim told Brahms:

“You have inflicted a heavy defeat on me on my own territory, and I would wish that my (somewhat arrogant) countrymen will soon be convinced of the spiritual superiority of the Germans! They would then cheerfully submit to the inevitable, and be happy to have their mother-tongue acknowledged.”

Like his Piano Quintet Op.34, Brahms’s Op.25 Piano Quartet begins with a broad, subdued theme; but whereas the later work explodes almost at once into a flurry of semiquavers, Brahms reserves his semiquaver activity in the piano quartet for the eventual fortissimo restatement of his main theme. The figuration of the semiquavers is to generate much of the material during the further course of the piece. The principal second subject, for instance, is initially heard as a soaring cello tune in the minor, but the major-mode version of the theme that follows it is accompanied throughout by the semiquaver motif, which also reappears as a prime source of energy in the opening stage of the central development section.

This is one of Brahms’s first movements that do without the traditional repeat. Instead, as he so often liked to do, he makes a token return to the opening bars of the piece at the end of the exposition, as though the repeat were in fact being made, before striking off in a new direction; and since he concentrates on the main subject during the development section, he curtails its reappearance at the start of the recapitulation, joining it only for what had been its forceful restatement. From this point onwards, the music goes on to develop almost continually – so much so that Clara Schumann, who gave the premiere of the work in November 1861, complained to Brahms that she couldn’t find the recapitulation(!) – until the piece eventually sinks to an exhausted close.

The second movement is not a scherzo, but a shadowy Intermezzo, and most players take up Brahms’s suggestion of using mutes. The Intermezzo itself is followed by an uplifting trio in the major, which makes a fleeting return right at the end of the piece, allowing the music to disappear into thin air.

The slow movement is one of those broad, hymn-like pieces of which Brahms was so fond. Its smooth melody eventually gives way to a jagged idea in ‘dotted’ rhythm, and to a more animated episode in which distant military-style music can be heard. Just as this last passage appears to be dying away altogether, its tune erupts with force, as though someone had suddenly thrown a window open to allow the street-music below to be heard more clearly. The material of this contrasting episode never returns, but towards the end of the movement a fragment of the main theme on the violin is accompanied by a blaze of horns and trumpets from the piano, before peace returns. The peace is shattered in no uncertain terms by the wild gypsy celebrations of the finale. © Misha Donat 2017

PROGRAMME NOTES

Erich Höbarth VIOLIN

Erich Höbarth was born in 1956 into a family of Viennese musicians. His teachers in Vienna were Greta Biedermann and Franz Samohyl. He then continued to study in Salzburg with Sándor Végh, who was more than a teacher for him. In 1977 Erich was invited by Sándor Végh to Open Chamber Music, which changed his life and made clear his decision to become a musician. Végh asked Erich to join his famous quartet, and he was a member for three years. From 1980 to 1987 he was the leader of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Since 1983 he has been leading Concentus Musicus (conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt). He was also a member of the Vienna String Sextet, together with Thomas Riebl – a very successful ensemble that ran from 1980 to 2005. In 1987 the Quatuor Mosaïques was formed, playing on gut strings and focusing on the classical quartet repertoire. From 2001 to 2011 he was the Artistic Director of the Camerata Bern String Orchestra, and he is also the concert master of the Capella Andrea Barca which is directed by Sir András Schiff. Erich’s teaching experiences focus mainly on chamber music, which he has taught in Graz and Vienna, and since 2013 he has been a Professor of Violin at the Music University in Leipzig. A very important and close friend, and musical partner is Sir András Schiff, whom he first met in 1977 at IMS Prussia Cove.

Steven Isserlis CELLO

Acclaimed worldwide for his profound musicianship and technical mastery, British cellist Steven Isserlis enjoys a uniquely varied career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, author and broadcaster. He appears regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, including in the 2016/17 season the Vienna Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Tonhalle Zurich and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras; and gives recitals every season in major musical centres. As a chamber musician, he has curated concert series for many prestigious venues, including Wigmore Hall, New York’s 92nd St Y and Zankel Halls and the Salzburg and Verbier festivals. Unusually, he also directs chamber orchestras from the cello in classical programmes. He has a strong interest in historical performance, working with many period instrument orchestras and giving recitals with harpsichord and fortepiano. He is also a keen exponent of contemporary music and has premiered many new works, including John Tavener’s The Protecting Veil, Thomas Adès’s Lieux retrouvés, and György Kurtág’s For Steven. Steven’s award-winning discography includes

Bach’s complete Solo Cello Suites for Hyperion (Gramophone’s Instrumental Album of the Year); Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano with Robert Levin; and the Elgar and Walton concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Paavo Järvi. Steven’s latest release is the Brahms Double Concerto with Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, coupled with the 1854 version of Brahms’ B Major Piano Trio (with Jeremy Denk). For the past twenty years Steven Isserlis has been Artistic Director of IMS Prussia Cove, Cornwall. He also enjoys playing for children, and has created three musical stories, with the composer Anne Dudley. His two books for children, published by Faber, have been translated into many languages; a new book, a commentary on Schumann’s famous Advice for Young Musicians, has recently been published by Faber. The recipient of many awards, Steven Isserlis’s honours include a CBE in recognition of his services to music and the Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau. He gives most of his concerts on the Marquis de Corberon (Nelsova) Stradivarius of 1726, kindly loaned to him by the Royal Academy of Music.

Ralph Kirshbaum CELLO

Ralph Kirshbaum has performed frequently with many of the world’s great orchestras including the Boston, Chicago and London symphony orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Tonhalle Zurich, Orchestre de Paris, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra working with the most prominent collaborators. His many recordings have included the Grammy-winning recording of Tippett’s Triple Concerto for Phillips, the Elgar and Walton Concertos for Chandos, the Ravel, Shostakovich and Brahms Trios for EMI, the complete Bach Suites for solo cello and Barber Concerto and Sonata for EMI/Virgin Classics, the Brahms Double and Beethoven Triple Concertos for RCA, and most recently the complete Beethoven Sonatas and Variations for cello and piano for Onyx. Ralph Kirshbaum founded the RNCM Manchester International Cello Festival in 1988 and remained its Artistic Director through to its grand finale in 2007. In honour of the legendary cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, he led as Artistic Director the inaugural Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, held in Los Angeles in March 2012. The widely-acclaimed second festival took place in May 2016. Ralph Kirshbaum served on the faculty of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester for over thirty-five years, accepting in 2008 the Gregor Piatigorsky Endowed Chair in Violoncello at the

University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, where he currently serves as Chair of the Strings Department. He continues his annual association with IMS Prussia Cove and the London Master Class, as well as an active schedule of performance and masterclass commitments throughout the world.

Thomas Riebl VIOLA

Thomas Riebl studied with Siegfried Führlinger, Peter Schidlof and Sándor Végh. Having been a prizewinner at the International ARD Competition (Munich 1976), he won First Prize at the International Naumburg Viola Competition in New York in 1982. His performances worldwide include appearances with orchestras such as the Vienna, Bavarian Radio, and Chicago Symphony orchestras. Chamber music partners have included Gidon Kremer, Joshua Bell, Natalie Gutmann, Steven Isserlis, Sabine Meyer, Sir András Schiff, Oleg Maisenberg, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Jessye Norman and the Juilliard String Quartet. He was a member of the Vienna String Sextet from 1979 to 2004, and since 1983 has been professor at the University Mozarteum Salzburg. He is also Artistic Director of the Internationale Sommerakademie Bad Leonfelden, Austria, and has made numerous recordings for EMI, RCA, Pan Classics and Hyperion Records.

Sir András Schiff PIANO

Sir András Schiff is world-renowned and critically acclaimed as a pianist, conductor, and lecturer. Born in Budapest in 1953, he studied at the Liszt Academy with Pál Kadosa, György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados, and in London with George Malcolm. Recitals and special cycles, including the major keyboard works of J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and Bartók form an important part of his activities. He has worked with most of the major international orchestras and conductors, but nowadays he performs mainly as a conductor and soloist. In 1999 he founded the chamber orchestra Cappella Andrea Barca and he also works as a conductor every year with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. His many recordings include the complete solo piano music of Beethoven and Janác ek, Bach’s Partitas, ‘Goldberg’ Variations and the Well-tempered Clavier, and Beethoven’s ‘Diabelli’ Variations. His latest recording with ECM Records of the late piano works of Franz Schubert was awarded the International Classical Music Award for best Solo Instrumental Recording of the Year. In June 2014 Sir András Schiff was bestowed a knighthood for services to music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Gerhard Schulz VIOLIN

Gerhard Schulz was born in Austria into a family of musicians, and studied with Franz Samohyl, Sándor Végh and Shmuel Ashkenasi. As a student he attended Sándor Végh’s violin masterclass at the first International Musicians’ Seminar in 1972. He is the founder of several chamber music groups, including the Salzburg String Trio, the Düsseldorf String Quartet and the Waldstein Ensemble. He was Concert Master of the Illinois Chamber Orchestra and a member of the world famous Alban Berg Quartet from 1978 until they played their last season in 2008. From 1993 to 2012 he was a professor of Chamber Music in Cologne, and is currently professor of violin at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna and a professor of Chamber Music at the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart.

Dénes Várjon PIANO

Dénes Várjon graduated from the Franz Liszt Music Academy in 1991, where his professors included Sándor Falvai, György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados. Parallel to his studies he was regular participant at several international masterclasses with Sir András Schiff. He works regularly with partners such as Steven Isserlis, Tabea Zimmermann, Kim Kashkashian, Jörg Widmann, Leonidas Kavakos, Sir András Schiff, Heinz Holliger, Miklós Perényi and Joshua Bell. As a soloist he is a welcome guest at major concert series, from New York’s Carnegie Hall to Vienna’s Konzerthaus and London’s Wigmore Hall. He is frequently invited to work with many of the world’s leading symphony orchestras, including the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Tonhalle Zurich, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Russian National Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica and Academy of St Martin in the Fields. He appears regularly at leading international festivals from Marlboro to Salzburg and Edinburgh. He also performs frequently with his wife Izabella Simon playing four hands and two pianos recitals together. He has recorded for the Naxos, Capriccio and Hungaroton labels with critical acclaim. Teldec released his CD with Sándor Veress’s Hommage à Paul Klee, performed with Sir András Schiff, Heinz Holliger and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. His recording Hommage à Géza Anda, (PAN-Classics Switzerland) has received international praise. His solo CD with pieces of Berg, Janác ek and Liszt was released in 2012 by ECM. In 2015 he recorded the Schumann Piano Concerto with the WDR Symphonieorchester and Heinz Holliger, and all five Beethoven Piano Concertos with Concerto Budapest and András Keller.

BIOGRAPHIES

The International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove was founded in 1972 by the Hungarian violinist Sándor Végh. Invited to Cornwall to attend a small music festival by Hilary Tunstall-Behrens, Sándor Végh understood the fruitful relationship between nature and music, and immediately realised that this remote place on the Atlantic coast could offer sustenance and inspiration to musicians. The masterclasses have taken place every year since. Open Chamber Music began four years later, when Sándor Végh invited some of the students from the masterclasses to stay on and play chamber music with him. Open Chamber Music has grown over the years into a three-week seminar involving over one hundred musicians, who rehearse around sixty pieces of chamber music in total and give nine public concerts across West Cornwall every September.

At a time when accuracy, volume and security of technique were occupying the minds of many musicians, Sándor Végh spoke out in search of inspiration, interpretation and the freedom of a more instinctive and subjective approach. Through his teaching he sought to work against the erosion of central European musical traditions. For him music was about speaking and sharing rather than shining and dazzling. His teacher, Jenö Hubay, was himself a student of Brahms, something which gives young musicians coming to IMS today a feeling of a direct connection to the past and a genuine link to a great tradition in music-making and teaching.

After twenty-five years as Artistic Director, Sándor Végh determined that the tradition he had nurtured at the seminars should be carried on and invited cellist Steven Isserlis to take on the role. Steven first attended the courses at the age of fifteen as a student, then as an Open Chamber Music participant, and subsequently as a professor. He now comes every year to teach during the spring masterclasses. Steven Isserlis is supported in his role as Artistic Director by two musicians who have long association with the seminars, Sir András Schiff and Ralph Kirshbaum, who are both Artistic Advisers.

Within the seminars, depth of interpretation is explored in a free, unpressured environment and musicians work unencumbered by the constant demands of busy schedules. Over the years these seminars have become a cultural oasis. They offer musicians from all over the world the opportunity to broaden their musical horizons and to make new contacts; stimuli which are vital to a developing artist. Many of the world’s leading soloists have attended the seminars, and acknowledge how much their playing owes to the magical influence of time spent in Cornwall. Former students and participants of the seminars are to be found among the leaders of the great orchestras of the world.

ABOUT IMS PRUSSIA COVE

CHARITY ART AUCTION · 18 MAY 2017

A rare opportunity to bid for works byJeremy Annear · Catherine Armitage · Morag Ballard · Nicola Bealing

Romi Behrens · Clive Blackmore · Graham Boyd · Judy Buxton · Richard Cook Henrietta Dubrey · Naomi Frears · Anthony Frost · Jeremy le Grice Barbara Hepworth · Roger Hilton · Rose Hilton · Stephen Hough Prof Ken Howard OBE RA · Chris Insoll · Rachel Kidd Nicholson Andrew Lanyon · Alice Mumford · Brian Pearce · Frank Phelan

Greg Powlesland · Mark Surridge · Lisa Wright · Partou Zia

An evening to celebrate the connections between art and music, and the inspiration of the Cornish landscape. Funds raised will support the work of IMS Prussia Cove.

Spaces for this event are limited, so please register your interest as soon as possibleFor more information contact: admin@i-m-s.org.uk | 020 7620 4449 | www.i-m-s.org.uk

Gallery Different,14 Percy Street, London W1T 1DR

On

The

Bal

cony

200

9, O

il on

Can

vas,

by R

ose

Hilt

onSteven Isserlis ©

Miles Essex

Sándor Végh CircleNicholas BerwinMr and Mrs Robert BoasMr and Mrs Jonathan GaismanMr and Mrs Donald Main

Young Musicians CircleSir Richard AikensJennifer CoombsRebecca Lamont and Simon FieldMr and Mrs Anthony Pitt-Rivers

Trusts and FoundationsAlbert and Eugenie Frost Music TrustAnn Driver TrustArts Council EnglandCavatina Chamber Music TrustEdington ArtsFidelio Charitable TrustFriends of IMSGordon Clark Memorial TrustMartin Smith FoundationMayfield Valley Arts TrustSir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary

SettlementSolti FoundationSpoff ’s Scholarship FundThe Lady More Charitable Trust

BequestsCarl Flesch bequestMargery Hall bequestIMS Endowment FundJenefer Ann Murray bequestJoyce Rathbone bequestPoole Scholarship Fund

SponsorsGranite Coast LtdMessum’sTarisioRose Tempest

Other SupportersWe are also very grateful to recent individual donors and supporters of our work:Mr and Mrs David Bowerman, Barnabas Brunner, John Gilhooly OBE, Samantha Hewson, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Gilbert McCabe, Malcolm McKeand, Mr Bernard Oppetit, Mr and Mrs Haakon Overli, Ferenc Rados, Mrs Jackie Rosenfeld, Lord and Lady St. Levan, Sir András Schiff, Charlotte Soetje, Sir Martin and Lady Smith, Peter Swanson, Mr Peter Tunstall-Behrens, Rita Wagner and all our anonymous donors.

VolunteersWe would also like to thank our extremely hard-working volunteers, who donate their time in Cornwall at the seminars and throughout the year. We are very grateful for their generous goodwill and expertise, without which we could not run the seminars.

Hilary would like particular mention to be given to the following who gave such great support during the early days:Mary and Ralph Verney, Mary and Sidney Schofield, John and Sue St Levan, Robert Etherington, Josephine Goodden, Dorothy and Leonard Elmhurst, Jonet and John Vyvyan, Bridget and David Hugh-Jones, Annie Penrose, Barbara Favell, Michael Bowers, Michael and Tessa Swann, Monica Wynter, David Cohen, Carolyn Lytton, Anthony Shaftesbury, Jackie Rosenfeld, Peter Pettinger, Gareth and Charlotte Keane.

And to our Presidents: Yehudi Menuhin, Sir Michael Tippett, Nathan Milstein, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon Rattle

IMS PRUSSIA COVE SUPPORTERS

We would like to express our grateful thanks to all our funders and supporters, especially the following for their generosity in our current financial year:

Every year, we need to raise nearly £300,000 in addition to funds received through masterclass fees in order to run the seminars and keep musicians’ fees at an affordable level. Fundraising activities include concerts and events throughout the year, and invaluable support is gained from individual donations and subscriptions. We also welcome sponsorship and grants from businesses and charitable organisations interested in helping to foster our tradition of excellence.

Join the IMS Prussia Cove family We need your support. Please consider helping us to continue our work – through an annual subscription, as a member of one of our Donor’s Circles, or by leaving a gift in your Will.

Donors’ Circles These high-level supporters play a key role in the work of IMS Prussia Cove and benefit from being more closely involved with the seminars. We particularly welcome funding is committed for three years, which enables us to plan with confidence, securing senior musicians of the highest calibre for our seminars and ensuring that talented young musicians are able to attend regardless of their financial situation.

Young Musician’s CircleAn opportunity to support young musicians attending the Masterclass Seminar, minimum annual donation £500.

Sándor Végh CircleOur most dedicated group of supporters, who help to fund the work of our senior musicians and Artistic Director, minimum annual donation £3,000.

For further details, including donors’ benefits, please visit: www.i-m-s.org.uk/support/donors/

Legacy giving A gift in your Will is a valuable way in which you could help, enabling us to continue our work with musicians worldwide and supporting performances of the highest calibre across Britain. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you would like to discuss this further.

Friends and Patrons The Friends and Patrons provide valuable support through annual membership subscriptions, enabling grants to be awarded to students who would not otherwise be able to attend the Masterclass Seminar. The Friends also arrange our Cornwall concert series, helping to bring our work to wider audiences in a remote corner of Britain, and providing a performance platform for young musicians. Membership starts from £20 per year and benefits include advanced booking for concerts in Cornwall.

For further details, please visit our website: www.i-m-s.org.uk/support/friends/

We are grateful for any support you feel you can give and if you are already one of our supporters, THANK YOU, and please help spread the word to others who may be interested!

www.i-m-s.org.uk/support

SUPPORT IMS PRUSSIA COVE

Sir András Schiff ©

Clive Barda

IMS Prussia CoveBoard of Directors: Tessa Gaisman MBE (Chairman), Judi Barrett (Friends of IMS, Chairman), Robert Boas, David Cairns, Jonathan Gaisman QC, John Gilhooly OBE, Maria Lucas-Tooth, Frank Mampaey, Gilbert McCabe, Haakon Overli, Sir Martin Smith, David Whelton OBE

Administrator: Rosie Yeatman. Development Officer: Hannah MorrowUnit 2, The Cottage, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, London SE1 7LG 020 7620 4449 · rosie@i-m-s.org.uk · www.i-m-s.org.uk

Registered Charity Number: 270204. Registered office: 32 Grafton Square, London SW4 0DB

Wigmore Hall, 36 Wigmore Street, London, W1U 2BP Director: John Gilhooly, The Wigmore Hall Trust. Registered Charity No. 1024838. www.wigmore-hall.org.uk

Wigmore Hall is a no-smoking venue. No recording or photographic equipment may be taken into the auditorium, nor used in any other part of the Hall without the prior written permission of the Hall Management. Wigmore Hall is equipped with a ‘Loop’ to help hearing aid users receive clear sound without background noise. Patrons can use the facility by switching their hearing aids over to ‘T’. In accordance with the requirements of City of Westminster,

persons shall not be permitted to stand or sit in any of the gangways intersecting the seating, or to sit in any of the other gangways. If standing is permitted in the gangways at the sides and rear of the seating, it shall be limited to the numbers indicated in the notices exhibited in those positions.

Facilities for Disabled People

Please contact House Management for full details.

tarisio-prussia-cove-2011209-lefthand-COATED-V2.indd 1 12/9/16 9:57 AM