Tring Chamber Music - Midwinter recital in the Ballroom

In the intimate ambience of the Mansion ballroom we celebrate the influence of the ‘Salon’ on central European traditions of fine music making. Musical soirées in stylish 'Salons' were meeting places for leading figures of the musical world. They were a space for virtuosi and composers alike to mix and marinate, share and inspire. Our concert opens in true grand Bohemian style with Smetana’s magnificent Piano Trio. If Smetana was the ‘Father of Czech Music’, then it was his successor, Dvorak who popularised his country’s rich heritage. Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances (inspired by the Hungarian Dances of Brahms) include some of his most touching moments. Fellow countryman Janacek is represented by Pohadka, or Fairy Tale for cello and piano, an evocative short work dating from 1910. Chopin too would frequent many a fashionable salon. We hear a memorable arrangement by Balakirev of the slow movement of his second Piano Concerto. It was common practice for the greatest virtuoso violinists, in this case Joachim and Kreisler, to arrange the dances of Dvorak and Brahms for their recitals, as colourful and popular today as they were in those nineteenth century 'Salons.'