WORDS and MUSIC
with narrators:
CHRISTOPHER RAVENSCROFT
ANN PENFOLD
In these programmes, readings narrated by Christopher Ravenscroft and Ann Penfold are woven around music by the composers and their contemporaries.
BEETHOVEN
A GENIUS
MOZART
MAN & MUSIC
THE SCHUMANNS
TURBULENCE & FRIENDSHIPS
The English Piano Trio present three contrasting ‘Words and Music’ programmes for their next season.
BEETHOVEN – A GENIUS
The English Piano Trio presents a programme with music from the piano trios and piano sonatas, interspersed with Beethoven’s revealing letters and contemporary accounts.
MOZART – MAN & MUSIC
Mozart composed six magnificent piano trios and two piano quartets. He also wrote letters to family, friends and colleagues. These letters are not only accounts of his work and travels, but also a revelation of an inner world of his joys, worries and emotions. They portray his humour and wit, and make compulsive reading and listening. These readings are woven around movements from his piano trios and piano quartets. The English Piano Trio is joined by viola player Susie Meszaros.
THE SCHUMANNS – TURBULENCE & FRIENDSHIPS
Robert Schumann’s emotionally turbulent life is unusually well-documented, not least because both he and his wife Clara kept diaries. The revealing and entertaining entries provide and insight into his music, his psychology, his friendships with Mendelssohn, Wagner, Liszt and Brahms, and of course his marriage to Clara, mother of their many children, as well as one of the greatest pianists of her age. The music is from works by both Robert and Clara Schumann, Brahms and Mendelssohn.
Christopher Ravenscroft is best known for playing Inspector Mike Burden in the long-running TV series based on Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford novels. As well as regular appearances in many other TV programmes, he has worked extensively with the RSC, in the West End and in regional theatres.
Ann Penfold has played many Shakespearean roles with the RSC, the English Shakespeare Company, and in leading theatres and the West End. She has also numerous TV appearances.