Arwen Newband (violin) and Anna Le Hair (piano)

Lovely to have Arwen and Anna (back in harness) with us again. A programme tailored for us, I thought – spanning the decades but always melodic.

They started the recital with Mozart’s Sonata in C major. Arwen told us that Mozart, at 21, had left Salzburg and was staying with a rich merchant in Mannheim where he gave piano lessons to the merchant’s teenage daughter. The piece was originally dedicated to her. Sonatas were generally written for the violin with piano accompaniment but since Mozart was a fine violinist as well as an excellent piano player, he wrote it so that she could play the piano and he the violin. A wonderful and joyous piece of music.

This was followed by two pieces from Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess arranged by Heifetz. Heifetz had been a good friend of Gershwin and had hope he’d compose a violin concerto for him, but Gershwin had died before he could do this. Heifetz had taken it upon himself to arrange some of the songs from Porgy & Bess for Violin and piano. We heard Summertime and Bess you is my woman now.

The recital was round off with Dvorak’s Romance in F minor. This Arwen told us had originally been the slow movement of his 5^th string quartet, written when he was not well-known, so it remained unpublished. He reworked it a few years later for violin and piano and also for orchestra, but Arwen thought the version for violin and piano was better. It was in any event a delightful piece.