Concert E 8 November 2026 Benjamin Baker violin Rachel Roberts viola Adrian Brendel cello Huw Watkins piano

BENJAMIN BAKER violin
RACHEL ROBERTS viola
ADRIAN BRENDEL cello
HUW WATKINS piano
Three of the top string players before the public today join Huw Watkins to celebrate his 50th birthday. Watkins himself has established his celebrity as both pianist and composer and is featured here in both capacities.
His String Trio No. 2 combines Brahmsian lyricism with mercurial vitality. Brahms’s own Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor, begun at a time when his beloved mentor, Robert Schumann, was entering his final mental crisis. The younger composer meanwhile was entertaining an unfulfilled passion for the older’s wife, Clara, and the work underwent a long, agonising genesis, only reaching completion twenty years later.
The emotional turmoil embodied in the work was likened by Brahms to that of Goethe’s lovesick hero Werther, who in desperation shoots himself.

PROGRAMME
■ Huw Watkins String Trio No. 2
■ Brahms Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor

www.benjamin-baker.com
www.rachelrobertsviola.co.uk
www.adrianbrendelmusic.com
www.schott-music.com/en/person/huw-watkins

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