Nightfall: Elgar, Berio, Messiaen, Schubert

This after-dark concert features artists from the London Festival of Chamber Music in solo and duo settings, culminating in Elgar’s ambitious Piano Quintet.

The intimacy of Schubert’s graceful Andantino Varié for piano four-hands sits alongside the grandness of Messiaen’s Interstellar Call for solo horn, inspired by the canyons of Utah. We encounter Luciano Berio, one of the leading voices of the European post-war avant garde, in virtuosic (Psy for solo double bass) and introspective (Wasserklavier for solo piano) moods.

The musicians come together to close the concert with Elgar’s Piano Quintet. Inspired by a tale of Spanish monks turned into trees for their depraved acts, it’s a haunting and entrancing work: “ghostly stuff”, as Elgar himself said.

You are invited to sit with the musicians on stage for this event, where the boundaries between artist and audience dissolve.