May Festival 2010 - The Rise of the String Trio

Peter Cropper is wonderfully fearless. - The Times.

Three friends with a shared passion for making music come together to perform three great string trios. Beethoven looked to Mozart’s Divertimento when composing his String Trio in E flat. The Divertimento, considered by many to be the greatest work ever written for this combination, features operatic and soloistic parts for all three players. Many composers were writing string trios at the time, but Mozart elevated the form to another level.

There will be a pre-concert talk given at 6.15pm entitled Mozart and the Great Divide (£2). Sheffield University's Prof Simon Keefe and broadcaster Paul Allen discuss Mozart's place in the revolution from Classicism to Romanticism.