REVIEW: Piano Classics in Crewe

Ian White reviews Manchester Camerata’s Chamber Classic’s concert with Martin Roscoe at the Crewe Lyceum

“The Manchester Camarata have a long established record of excellent concerts at Crewe and have always generated a large and appreciative audience.

The soloist was Martin Roscoe, one of Britain’s best loved pianists, returning both to his native Cheshire and once again to the Camerata. This was a rare performance of the chamber arrangement of Chopin’s most famous piano concerto in the 200th anniversary year of his birth.

Chopin’s chamber versions of the his two piano concertos are thought to have sat alongside the full orchestral scores. Whilst Chopin is not known for his orchestration and may indeed have used an arranger in the process the interweaving roles of Roscoe and the Camerata demonstrated Chopin’s unquestionable gifts. Indeed we witnessed that the Chamber version reveals more clearly the clarity of lines than the full orchestral version.

Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A Minor (the Trout Quintet) formed the second part of the concert and was composed when Schubert was only 22-years-old but not published until 1829, a year after his death.”

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