| Maxim Vengerov | Violin |
| Simon Trpčeski | Piano |
Sit back and watch the fireworks as two bona fide stars come together to perform three of the great violin sonatas and Ravel’s enduringly popular party piece Tzigane.
Having honed his craft on concert stages across the world for over 40 years, Maxim Vengerov has rightfully earned the description as ‘one of the most brilliant violinists you’ll ever hear’ (Washington Post). And the ‘wondrously talented’ Simon Trpčeski (The Guardian) provides the perfect foil.
They perform a programme of two distinctly contrasting halves. Where Mozart’s Sonata No 21 is tinged with melancholy, Prokofiev plumbs the full depths of darkness and despair in his Sonata No 1, written against the backdrop of Stalin’s Terror. The mood lightens after the interval, in the sweeping passion and rich harmonic language of Franck’s Sonata and the unabashed showmanship of Ravel’s whirlwind crowd-pleaser.