Music for two pianos by Brahms and Stravinsky

Two dazzling piano-duo works, receive a rare hearing: Brahms’ monumental sonata for two pianos - also well known in its version for piano quintet - and Stravinsky’s epoch-making Rite of Spring, in the glittering version that the composer and Debussy performed before it received its premiere as a ballet.

 

The English pianist Marie Noelle Kendall studied in London with Albert Ferber and Joyce Rathbone and at the Ferenc Liszt Academy in Budapest with Ferenc Rados and György Kurtág. Her distinguished career has included appearances at major London venues such as the Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Fairfields Hall, St John’s Smith Square and the Wigmore Hall and performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, London Soloists Chamber Orchestra and Manchester Camerata to name a few of the prominent ensembles she has played with. Her recent tours have taken her to Scandinavia, Estonia, Russia, the Netherlands, Hungary and Australia. She has broadcast on the BBC and Classic FM as well as in the US, Canada, Latin America and Australia.

 

David Christophersen is Artistic director of the Cambridge Concert Artists series at West Road Concert Hall. Born in Oslo, he has appeared in UK venues as varied as the Woburn Abbey Festival, Bristol St George’s, Edinburgh’s Reid Hall, Oxford’s Hollywell Music Room, London’s St John’s Smith Square, to name a few, and has broadcast recently on BBC Radio 3. He has performed in Scandinavia, Italy, Ireland and the UK, presenting cycles of sonatas by Schubert, Chopin and Beethoven, major works form the Latin American,Czech and French repertoire

and recently premiering a series of new chamber works by the composer Jeremy Thurlow. His latest project, a tour with Prokofiev’s wartime masterpieces sonatas 6-8 was described as ‘assured, thoughtful...exactly right’ by The Scotsman.