A joint promotion from Inverness Chamber Music and At One With Music will treat music lovers to six of the finest chamber music works by the greatest composer who ever lived, Ludvig van Beethoven, during two concerts next week.

Beethoven’s sonatas for cello and piano, five consistently inspired and wonderful works, offer the opportunity to trace the development of the composer’s genius throughout his life. Two early sonatas op. 5, written whilst Beethoven was as renowned as a virtuoso pianist and improviser as he was a composer, are followed some years later by perhaps the most famous sonata for this combination, the A major op. 69. This sublime creation dates from his middle years and is contemporary with the Violin Concerto and the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.  The last pair of sonatas, op. 102, are fully mature creations, written in the highly-developed language of the late piano sonatas and string quartets.  Completing the cycle will be the Sonata for Horn and Piano in F major, op. 17 in Beethoven’s own arrangement for cello and piano.

Following a critically acclaimed South Bank recital debut in 2003, cellist Robin Michael has been much in demand as soloist and chamber musician. He is principal cello of the Orchestra Revolutionnaire et Romantique and regular guest principal of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, English Baroque Soloists, Academy of Ancient Music and Soloists of Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Recent concert highlights include touring South Africa with both Haydn concertos and performing the complete Bach and Britten suite cycles. Robin is the cellist in the Fidelio trio with whom he has toured Europe, Asia and South Africa. They recently gave a critically acclaimed Wigmore Hall debut and made their US debut in New York and Washington in the 2010/11 season. He also appears regularly with chamber groups such as the Dante Quartet, Eroica Quartet and Nash Ensemble.

Pianist Daniel Tong’s musical life is spent performing as soloist and chamber musician, directing two chamber music festivals and teaching.  Daniel has appeared at many of the foremost British venues and festivals – Wigmore Hall, South Bank Centre, St Georges Bristol, Birmingham Town Hall as well as the Cheltenham, Aldeburgh and Edinburgh Festivals. He is frequently heard on BBC Radio and has broadcast throughout Europe. His latest project, ‘unravelled’ in collaboration with musicologist Richard Wigmore, has seen a series of lecture-recital weekends on Beethoven and Schubert piano sonatas.  In autumn 2012 he has been invited to curate a festival of Elgar’s music at Kings Place in London. The recordings by his London Bridge Ensemble have been praised and recommended in the press and in 2012 the Ensemble returns to the Wigmore Hall, appears at Kings Place in London and gives a series of concerts in Portugal.  The Ensemble will be performing in Inverness Town House on 6^th March 2013 for Inverness Chamber Music.  Each year Daniel plays with an array of wonderful artists, often at his own chamber festival in the Wye Valley.

Robin and Daniel will be playing Cello Sonatas No 1, No 4 and No 3 as well as the Horn Sonata for Inverness Chamber Music on Wednesday 15^th February at 8.00pm in Inverness Town House.  Cello Sonatas No 2 and No 5 will be performed in the same venue for At One With Music at 1.00pm on Thursday 16^th February.

Source: James Munro