A few weeks ago on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review, a Saturday morning, there was music for piano, violin and cello by Takemitsu. A Japanese composer, long influential over European composers, gently telling us of his homeland’s serene beauty, and encouraging Western ears to tune into its physical and emotional ambience, in a piece called Between Tides.

Presenter Andrew McGregor noted special qualities More

Coffee Concert    25 March 2018  Trio Isimsiz

What an interesting programme! They have taken two of the great Romantic composers, most of whose works penetrate to the heart of what it means to be human, and played some of their lightest, most joyful work. From these pieces you wouldn’t know More

A new record Coffee Concert attendance was undeterred by the coldest air Siberia could send us on Sunday.  There were 40 people making a late decision to come and tot the gate up to 264 people, which beats The Corn Exchange’s best before its rebuilding forced More

I’ve written about the Castalian as recently as November 2017 after their last coffee concert. All the things I liked then are More

Coffee Concert: Amy Harman (bassoon), Adam Walker (flute), James Baillieu (piano) at Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Sussex University, Sunday 28 January 2018 (11am).

Beethoven, Trio in G major WoO37 (c1786); Debussy, Syrinx for solo Flute(1913); Poulenc, Flute Sonata (1957); Dutilleux, Sarabande et Cortege or bassoon and piano (1942); Weber, Trio in G minor Op63 for Flute, Cello and Piano (1819) arr for flute, bassoon and piano.

The violin is the staple caffeine of the Coffee Concerts More

Amy Harman, bassoon, Adam Walker, flute, James Baillieu, piano

I was looking forward to this concert with mixed feelings. Half the concert was to be not chamber music but recital: flute, or flute and piano, or bassoon and piano, rather than trios. And the combination of flute, bassoon and piano is not one made in heaven More