On 10 December the Piatti Quartet will be joined by guest cellist Ella Rundle for a performance of Schubert’s String Quintet.

But what makes this work so special?

“His String Quintet in C major is perhaps the most beautiful piece of chamber music ever composed” The Telegraph

When he died aged 31 in 1828, Schubert left nearly 1,000 compositions. All are marked by his distinctive genius and his short, prolific career changed the course of musical history. Yet he had only one public concert of his music during his lifetime and it was decades before his achievement began to be recognised.

2012 saw BBC Radio 3 celebrate the 215th anniversary of his birth with ‘The Spirit of Schubert’. As part of the coverage, The Guardian asked prominent musicians to pick their favourite work by Schubert – and three of them chose the C Major String Quintet. Here’s what they said:

Marin Alsop, conductor

“Easily my favourite piece is his last chamber work, the String Quintet in C major, featuring two cellos. With both my parents string players, and as a violinist myself, I grew up playing the piece with family and friends. What always struck me was the transcendental and spectacular moment when the melody breaks out in the cellos. Later, while I was a student, we would often put on marathon chamber music evenings that would last all night, with the ensembles growing in size. These were some of the most fun evenings of my life. For me the Quintet will always represent youth, friendship and the warmth of the shared experience.”

Ian Bostridge, tenor

“It has to be the Schubert Quintet in C major, one of the extraordinary works from the last 18 months of his life. It contains the most wonderful use of layering and harmonies. The unusual collection of instruments (three violins, viola and two cellos) means the second cello can liberate the other, so it’s not always having to hold the bassline. After the depth of the first movement, there’s a serene second movement, and then typical eruptions of ferocity. The last movement goes into a different place, a more relentlessly jolly one – but you get the sense that he has to make an effort to get there.”

Natalie Clein, cellist

“There are at least five works I couldn’t live without, but from a playing point of view I’d pick the Quintet in C major. I’m often asked to join string quartets to play the second cello part. You play at the very bass of the piece, and yet he lets the second cello really sing. He was the most harmonically sensitive composer, seeing a kaleidoscope of colours where most composers see one.

The second theme is in a major key, and yet it’s utterly heartbreaking; Schubert manages to be at his most touching and ephemeral in major keys. The same theme comes back in the last movement after a wild Viennesse whirl of a dance, as if he’s bringing back the ghost of the first movement: it’s like a dream of a dream. I often think of him in terms of semi-consciousness or another spiritual level. I first got to know this work at 16, and remember being struck by something deeply spiritual, a kind of wisdom I hadn’t come across before.”

Piatti Quartet

Hear the prizewinning Piatti Quartet perform Schubert’s String Quintet alongside works by Bridge, Hawkins and Haydn on 10 December in Bath’s atmospheric Old Theatre Royal.

“Musically compelling …”  The Strad

One of the works to be performed by the Piatti Quartet on 10 December will be Haydn’s 1772 String Quartet in C Major Op.20 No.2 – one of the works that earned Haydn the nickname ’The Father of the String Quartet’.

But what events brought Haydn to Bath a few years later?

Haydn was well-established as one of the leading composers of Europe presiding over the busy musical life at the court of the Hungarian Prince Nikolaus Esterházy ‘the Magnificent’. But after the death of his patron in 1790, Haydn soon embarked on his travels to England – to Oxford, Cambridge, Slough and London. In 1794 aged 62 he embarked on more journeys to Hampton Court, Gosport, Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight, Winchester and eventually to Bath and Bristol.

South East View of City of Bath by Thomas Hearne, 1792

Haydn arrived in Bath on 2 August accompanied by the flautist Andrew Ashe, and the Venetian composer and singing teacher Giambattista Cimador. He stayed at the home of the renowned castrato, composer and harpsichordist Venanzio Rauzzini, who had succeeded William Herschel as Director of Music for the Pump Room and Assembly Rooms in Bath.

Haydn’s description of his trip in his diary gives a good account of his agreeable time in the city:

“on August 2, 1794, I left for Bath at five in the morning and arrived at 8pm. I stayed with Mr Rauzzini, a very famous musician who was one of the greatest singers of his time. He has been living there for 19 years, supports himself with subscription concerts in the winter, and also gives lessons. He is a very good and hospitable man. His summer house, where I stayed, lies in a very lovely site on a hill that overlooks the whole city.

Bath is one of the most beautiful towns in Europe, all the houses being made of stone. The stone is quarried in the nearby hills and it is so soft that it can be cut easily into all shapes, and is very white. The longer it is out of the earth, the harder it becomes. There are many beautiful squares with the most magnificent houses. The whole town lives on a slope, and therefore there are few coaches, but there are plenty of Sedan chairs in which one can be carried a good distance for sixpence.”

Rauzzini’s showed Haydn the tomb of his beloved dog Turk, in his garden, bearing the inscription: “Turk was a faithful dog and not a man,” Haydn set these words as a four-part canon which Rauzzini later added to the dog’s epitaph. You can still see the memorial to Venanzio Rauzzini in Bath Abbey which was erected to him by his pupils.

Venanzio Rauzzini with his dog Turk by Joseph Hutchkinson, 1795

Haydn also received a remarkably enthusiastic welcome in the Bath Herald and Register:

“Oh, had I Jubal’s lyre, I would sweep the strings till Echo tired with repeating – Haydn treads upon Bathonian ground! Had this place, previous to his arrival, been the seat of discord it must now lulled into peace by the God of Harmony – while every individual who has music in his soul must exclaim with enthusiasm: Erit mihi magnus Apollo!”

Piatti Quartet

Hear the prizewinning Piatti Quartet perform Haydn’s String Quartet alongside works by Bridge, Hawkins and Schubert on 10 December in Bath’s atmospheric Old Theatre Royal.

“Musically compelling …”  The Strad

Bath Recitals presents a double bill this Christmas with two fabulous concerts in the heart of the city. 

On 10 December one of the UK’s foremost young ensembles will be performing in the intimate surrounding of the Old Theatre Royal when the Piatti Quartet bring an exciting programme of string quartets to the city. 

The Piatti Quartet will present a varied programme from the classical period with Josef Haydn, to the English pastoral of Frank Bridge and to the current day for an enjoyable new piece by John Hawkins along with Franz Schubert’s magnificent Quintet with guest cellist Ella Rundle:

Prizewinners at the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition and with a host of awards and recordings to their name, the Piatti have since given over 60 concerts in the UK and abroad, including many new collaborations, radio broadcasts, 2 commissions, and recording projects.

A week later on 18 December Belinda Sykes leads the five female vocalists and instrumentalists of Joglaresa as they return by popular demand to present a Yuletide feast with a difference when their national tour of Caroles of Nunnes and Roses comes to Bath. 

This concert sees a welcome return to the glorious Pump Room with a festive offering with Christmas lullabies, nowells, medieval chants and wassails all accompanied by fidel, harp, dulcimer and percussion.

David Gregory, chairman of Bath Recitals, said: “This is a really exciting double bill bringing one of our most successful and diverse concerts season’s to date to a grand finale.”

Tickets for each concert are £15 each (£14 Discovery Cardholders). Save 20% on ticket prices when you book for both concerts in the same purchase. Just add the coupon code ‘DOUBLE’ to your basket to apply the discount.

When Tango Siempre come to Bath on 22 October, one of the star performers will bandoneonist Julian Rowlands.

Nicholas Keyworth investigates this curious yet wonderful instrument…

Julian Rowlands

The origins of the bandoneon can be traced back to mid C19 Germany with the dealer, Heinrich Band and its development from the older concertina for religious and popular music of the day.

German and Italian emigrants brought the instrument to Argentina in the 1870s where is was readily adopted into use within tango music.

By 1910 bandoneons were being produced in great numbers for the Argentine and Uruguayan markets, with 25,000 shipping to Argentina in 1930 alone. However, World War II disrupted German manufacturing which signalled the end of bandoneon mass-production.

So what’s the difference between a concertina and a bandoneon?

Both instruments are held between both hands and the pushing and pulling motion forces air through its bellows, which is routed through reeds by pressing its buttons.

The button keyboard layout is designed to facilitate playing chords rather than scale passages of single-notes. This is because its original purpose was to support singers of religious music in small churches with no organ or harmonium

But unlike the concertina, the bandoneon‘s buttons produce different notes on the push and the pull. So each keyboard actually has two layouts: one for opening notes, and one for closing notes. Since the right and left hand layouts are also different, a musician must learn four different keyboard layouts to play the instrument!

The Argentinian bandleader, composer, arranger, and tango performer Aníbal Troilo was one of the first proponents of the bandoneon. But it was Astor Piazzolla who rose to be the undoubted master of the bandoneon with his dazzling solos and compositions for the instrument. His grounding in classical music combined with traditional Argentinian tango formed nuevo tango, a fresh new interpretation of the genre which has become popularised across the globe.

Piazzolla and the bandoneon

See and hear the bandoneon in action on Saturday 22 October with Tango Siempre’s concert at the Old Theatre Royal.