The 13th Lewes Chamber Music Festival takes place from 6 to 8 June 2024 with artistic director Beatrice Philips bringing together 18 of today’s most exciting chamber-musicians and soloists to explore the musical ties between Europe and America through celebrating the 150th birthdays of Arnold Schoenberg and Charles Ives, including Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 and Ode to Napoleon with actor Samuel West, and rare chamber versions of larger scale works by Richard Strauss and Mahler.
The weekend opens with early piano quartets by Mahler and Richard Strauss along with music by Elliott Carter and Anton Webern’s quintet arrangement of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No.1, and there is more Schoenberg with a late-night performance of Verklärte Nacht. And the festival will include more Schoenberg along with performances of music by Berg, Zemlinsky, Schulhoff, Korngold, Hindemith, Brahms, Ives, Amy Beach and Gershwin.
A wonderfully ambitious gala concert features Guido Martin-Brandis’ arrangement of the magical closing scenes from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier with singers Hilary Cronin and Elinor Rolfe Johnson and Erwin Stein’s chamber arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 for 12 musicians with Hilary Cronin returning for the soprano solo in the finale.
The final concert features another rare performance, this time of Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon with actor Samuel West, plus Beethoven’s Septet and Charles Ives’ Largo for clarinet, piano and violin.
Full details from the festival website.
