Programme:

Brahms - Scherzo in C minor from F.A.E. Sonata
Clarke - Midsummer Moon
Mozart - Sonata in B flat major for violin and piano, K. 454

Interval

Lili Boulanger - D'un matin de printemps
Fauré - Andante op. 75 & Berceuse op. 16
Pärt - Fratres
Fanny Mendelssohn - Adagio for violin and piano H.72
Bartók - Romanian Folk Dances

Fenella Humphreys, violin
Emma Abbate, piano

Fenella Humphreys, winner of the 2023 BBC Music Magazine Premiere Recording Award, has attracted critical admiration and audience acclaim with the grace and intensity of her remarkable performances.

With her playing described in the press as “alluring”, “unforgettable” and “a wonder”, Fenella is one of the UK’s most established and versatile violinists, having also won the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Award. She enjoys a busy career combining chamber music with solo work, performing in the most prestigious venues around the world and is frequently broadcast on the BBC, Classic FM, Scala Radio and international radio stations.

Fenella performs widely as a soloist. Her recent album of Sibelius’ solo works with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and George Vass has been featured in BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library, Gramophone Magazine’s Guide to the Concerto, and was Album of the Week on Scala Radio. BBC Music Magazine has written of the recording: “it takes an unusually fine artist to be able to bridge the two extremes. Fenella Humphreys’s playing is a genuine revelation in the way it brings out the music’s dark and introspective qualities, with no shortage of technical panache meanwhile.”

Her 2024 album, Prism on Rubicon Classics was chosen as BBC Music Magazine’s Instrumental Choice Album for June 2024, and Gramophone Magazine advised "when each piece moves to the next with such an organic, spell-holding flow, you’re missing out if you don’t listen end to end."

For the launch of Apple Music Classical in April 2023, Fenella was one of a handful of artists invited to record a ‘Classical Session’ at home, alongside Daniel Barenboim, Beatrice Rana and Gautier Capuçon.
Fenella plays on a beautiful G.B. Guadagnini violin kindly on loan from Jonathan Sparey.

The Neapolitan pianist Emma Abbate enjoys a demanding career as a piano accompanist and chamber musician. Described as "an amazingly talented pianist" by the leading Italian magazine Musica, she has performed in duo recitals for international festivals and concert societies in Austria, Portugal, Italy, Poland and USA, and at many prestigious UK venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Royal Opera House, St John’s Smith Square, St George’s, Bristol and at the Aldeburgh Festival. She also regularly broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and has recently presented an episode of Inside Music.

Emma is making a series of acclaimed recordings devoted to 20th century Italian vocal chamber music, the latest of which is the world-première Franco Alfano: Songs with the leading Italian soprano Anna Pirozzi. Previously, Emma has released Sera d'inverno: Songs by Ildebrando Pizzetti with mezzo-soprano Hanna Hipp, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Shakespeare Sonnets with bass-baritone Ashley Riches. A keen advocate of contemporary music, Emma has also released two discs devoted to works by Stephen Dodgson that include his piano quintets with the Tippett Quartet. Other world-première recordings include works for cello and piano by Algernon Ashton and Krzysztof Meyer with Evva Mizerska.

Emma also cultivates an active interest in historical keyboards, and has performed and recorded on a range of original instruments for the Finchcocks Charity and at Hatchlands Park and the Russell Collection. Together with Julian Perkins, she has recorded the complete keyboard duets by Mozart and Weber on original Viennese fortepianos. Julian and Emma's latest duet release, entitled Summer Dreams, brings together the complete works for piano duet by three major American composers: Edward MacDowell, Amy Beach and Samuel Barber. Previously, they had released Tournament for Twenty Fingers, featuring piano duets by British composers from the twentieth century: the disc has received 5 star reviews on BBC Music Magazine and has been chosen by Scala Radio as Album of the Weekend.

Based in London, Emma is a professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and a staff coach at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She has been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of her ‘significant contribution’ thus far to the music profession.