Blog Archives
22 BEETHOVEN LATE QUARTETS 5
Sibelius: Andante Festivo
Beethoven: Quartet in F, Op.135 [Pavel Haas Quartet]
Beamish: Field of Stars for four quartets [world premiere]
Mendelssohn: Octet, Op.20 [Belcea and Castalian Quartets]
Belcea Quartet
Castalian Quartet
Elias Quartet
Pavel Haas Quartet
4×4: Four string quartets join forces to complete 2025’s cycle of Beethoven’s late quartets and play an octet and a … what shall we call it? A hextet? In fact, a hextet is computer terminology for ‘a 16-bit aggregation’: in the absence of anything better to describe a piece for 16 players, we’ll borrow that. These are the string quartets which have made the greatest impact at ENF over the years, all of them more usually to be heard in the great concert halls of the world than here in the Bowhouse – and that makes this occasion all the more unmissable.
With Beethoven’s Op.135 the Pavel Haas Quartet conclude 2025’s cycle of late quartets. It is a wonderful piece not least because, having journeyed far in the preceding four pieces, he returns for his last quartet to something more like the traditional quartet his great forebears Haydn and Mozart knew. As warm and heartfelt as it is profound, it is a poignant, affirmative end to a life’s work. As Beethoven was writing his late quartets, the 16-year-old Felix Mendelssohn was pulling off the astounding feat of writing his octet – a masterpiece which has never failed to delight and astonish players and listeners alike.
21 EUAN STEVENSON TRIO
“In performance, it’s all about class and quality: Stevenson has a beautiful touch, caressing the keys Bill Evans-style but rhythmically perfect too…” [Jazzwise Magazine]
Stevenson relishes an ongoing dialogue with the jazz greats from Ellington to Evans, bringing his own distinctive style and pianistic flair to classics and new discoveries alike. Come enjoy some delightful jazz on a Sunday afternoon.
20 BEETHOVEN SEPTET
Moritz and Leopold Ganz: Duo Concertante: Fantasy on themes from Der Freischütz *
Beethoven: Septet in E-flat, Op. 20
*Alexander Janiczek, violin
Diyang Mei, viola
*Philip Higham, cello
Graham Mitchell, bass
Robert Plane, clarinet
Alec Frank-Gemmill, horn
Ursula Leveaux, bassoon
More than 20 years ago, the very first event took place which would lead to the creation of ENF – a performance of Beethoven’s Septet in Elie Church. Following its success, one thing led to another and suddenly here we are welcoming back some of the players from that original performance to perform it afresh. It is the perfect festive piece for our 20th birthday. In many ways it is the opposite of Beethoven’s late quartets: there is no sense of him striving to write the music of the future – he simply scores a popular hit with irresistible zest and joy. Famously, its runaway success came to irritate him so much he disclaimed authorship on several occasions.
To open we have a proper rarity – and we believe, a Scottish premiere, c. 200 years after it was written! Moritz and Leopold Ganz were brothers and pillars of the Berlin music scene in the 1820s and 1830s. Berlioz, visiting in 1843, wrote “The strings are nearly all first-rate, but one should particularly single out the brothers Ganz (the admirable first violin and first cello)…” Both played in the pit for the opera on occasion, and tapped into the popularity of fantasias on operatic themes in works like the Grand Duo we will hear, prepared especially for the occasion by Alexander Janiczek and Philip Higham.
19 KATHRYN TICKELL AND THE DARKENING
We’re thrilled to welcome one of the legends of the folk scene to Anstruther. Kathryn Tickell is one of those musicians who connects across all kinds of musical boundaries and brings her own distinctive voice to all she does. She’s performed classical, experimental and many different kinds of traditional work over the years, and comes now with her band, The Darkening [Northumbrian for twilight]: musicians mostly from the North-East of England who take inspiration from the wild, dramatic Hadrian’s Wall country and explore the connecting threads of music, landscape and people: Amy Thatcher (accordion, synth, clogs, vocals), Kieran Szifris (octave mandolin), Joe Truswell (drums, percussion); with Stef Conner (vocals, lyres).
18 SCHUBERT 1828:2 [PAVEL HAAS QUARTET]
Janáček: String Quartet No 1 (‘Kreutzer Sonata’)
Schubert: Quintet in C, D.956
Pavel Haas Quartet
Ivan Vokač, cello
Janáček and Schubert make a wonderful combination that we have experienced many times at a ENF – especially in the performances of the Pavel Haas Quartet. There is something about the sheer theatrical intensity of Janáček that contrast to beautifully with Schubert’s more spacious work. So here we have Janáček telling Tolstoy’s tale of passion, jealousy and murder in music of vivid, almost cinematic immediacy alongside Schubert’s immense, reflective masterpiece. The time-stopping pathos of the quintet’s famous slow movement is balanced by the sheer propulsive joy of the last two movements.
17 NIZAR ROHANA
To close a day of lute, guitar and electric guitar, we go properly ancient and modern. The Oud is the ancestor of all those other instruments: its origins are properly lost in the mists of time. We know it has been played for at least a milennium, and musicians like Oud master Nizar Rohana are the latest in an unbroken chain of musicians who have relished its delicacy, rhythm, subtlety and rich sound world over the centuries. He brings his latest work to the festival in a mesmerising solo performance.
16 SHIBE TRAIL 3: ELECTRIC
One of the truly exciting things about following Sean Shibe’s career over the past decade has been to join him as he delves right back into the past to explore pre-guitar music with lute and also bring things bang up to date with electric guitar. So, over the course of today, he plays music of 5 centuries on lute, guitar and electric guitar in 3 intimate Anstruther venues; close up music. To close the day we’ve invited Nizar Rohana, a master of an instrument that predates them all – the Oud – to end this journey with music that is both contemporary and ancient. Each concert lasts around 40 minutes, allowing time between them to enjoy Anstruther, grab a bag of chips…
For the 3rd concert of the day, Shibe goes Electric. At the heart of this performance is a piece that really put Shibe on the map as a very special artist was Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint. Even Reich – who is famously difficult to please – was blown away by his recording. He wrote it for jazz guitarist Pat Metheney, and it’s about the most joyous music we know.
15 SCHUBERT 1828:I [PADMORE NEWBY MIDDLETON]
Schubert: Schwanengesang
Mark Padmore, tenor
James Newby, baritone
Joseph Middleton, piano
Schwanengesang is not a song cycle like Winterreise, say, but more of a gathering together of his last songs. He set verse by two poets ranging from humorous to poignant – a reminder that though these may be Schubert’s ‘swan songs’ he was a young man who should have enjoyed decades more of life and music. We have the luxury of not one but two wonderful singers to perform them – quite who will do what will be agreed by them – and a matchless pianist in Joseph Middleton.
14 SHIBE TRAIL 2: GUITAR
One of the truly exciting things about following Sean Shibe’s career over the past decade has been to join him as he delves right back into the past to explore pre-guitar music with lute and also bring thing bang up to date with electric guitar. So, over the course of today, he plays music of 5 centuries on lute, guitar and electric guitar in 3 intimate Anstruther venues; close up music. To close the day we’ve invited Nizar Rohana, a master of an instrument that predates them all – the Oud – to end this journey with music that is both contemporary and ancient. Each concert lasts around 40 minutes, allowing time between them to enjoy Anstruther, grab a bag of chips…
For this second concert, Shibe turns to guitar and plays Bach alongside music written especially for him by Thomas Adès – the first time the ‘Forgotten Dances’ will be heard in Scotland.
