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Registered Charity No.243866 |
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Ensemble Solista
Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass
works by
Hummel, Dvorak and Schubert |
NCO Soloists String Quintet
2 Violins, 2 Violas, Cello
works by
Mozart and Mendelssohn |
Stradivari Quartett
2 Violins, Viola, Cello
works by
Haydn, Mendelssohn and Beethoven |
W. Stafford & H. Takenouchi
Clarinet & Piano
works by
Weber, Saint-Saens, Poulenc & Brahms |
Jessica Chan
Piano recital
works by
Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Bridge, Brahms |
The Stanford Quartet
2 Violins, Viola, Cello
works by
Vaughan Williams, Stanford and Walton |
In 1925
radio broadcasting was at an early stage of development and the sound quality was poor. Gramaphone records
were limited to just a few minutes of scratchy playing time. It was in this environment that a group of local music-lovers
decided to form a society to engage professional musicians to play public classical music concerts in Wirral, and so Hoylake
Chamber Concert Society was born. In the winter of 1926-7 the society promoted its first season of concerts and between
then and the Second World War gave increasingly successful concerts and recitals over 14 seasons, attracting such prestigious ensembles
as the Griller Quartet, and a succession of famous pianists such as Myra Hess, Benno Moiseiwitsch and Egon Petri.
After the war, concerts resumed again with prestigious name: Denis Matthews, Colin Horsley, the Griller and Zorian Quartets, and the Blech Quartet whose leader, Harry Blech was to found the London Mozart Players and conduct them for their first 50 years. On a number of occasion in the 1940s and 50s our concerts were broadcast by the BBC on the Third Programme, the predecessor of BBC Radio 3. The increased ease of travel saw the appearance of foreign artists: the Prague Quartet, the Belgian Piano Quartet, and, in the spirit of giving a chance to young artists which is still a major part of the Society's purpose, newly formed quartets began to make their appearance: the Aeolian Quartet in 1948 and the Amadeus Quartet, in the first of many visits, in 1949. In the half century since those days of austerity, when a season's ticket for four concerts cost £1, and a prestigious quartet's fee would be of the order of 30 guineas (£31.50), the Society has continued to present each season a blend of artists already of international renown, including the Gabrieli and Coull Quartets, Alan Hacker, Amaryllis Fleming, Yfrah Neaman and John Ogdon (who, the minutes record, was pleased with the condition of the piano provided) together with the up and coming, many of whom became household names, such as the Lindsays, the Alberni, the Chilingirian, the Fitswilliam, the Endellion, and the Belcea Quartets.
More recently we have seen a succession of international ensembles performing at our concerts, including: the Henschel Quartett
from Munich, the Wihan Quartet from Prague, the Atrium Quartet from St. Petersburgh, the Royal Quartet from
Warsaw, the RTE Vanbrugh Quartet from Dublin, the Vertavo String Quartet from Oslo, the Haydn Quartet from Eisenstadt,
and the Fujita Piano Trio from Japan.
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