May Festival 2010 - Knocking on the Door of Romanticism

Fabulous...their technical expertise … their interpretation of the music...they were just excellent. - Embrace Magazine.

Written ten years apart, these two pieces by Beethoven couldn’t be more different. The compact and cheerful Horn Sonata was written as a showpiece for Beethoven’s favourite horn player Giovanni Punto. It is so virtuosic that it is hard to imagine how performers could have played it on the restrictive valve horns of the time.

The famous Archduke Trio is a majestic work that looks forward to Romanticism. It features one of the most moving slow movements ever written, evocative of a prayer.