Oxford May Music: Opening Night with the Salieca Piano Trio

Our resident Trio, the Salieca, get the Festival off to its musical start with an eclectic mix of classical and modern pieces, all new to the Festival. Beethoven’s 'Gassenhauer' takes its name from the fact that some of its themes were so catchy that they were whistled in Vienna’s streets (or Gasse as they are known). The Piano Trio of Arno Babajanian, a contemporary of Shostakovich, is his best known work and makes use of Armenian folk melodies. Ireland’s Trio was one of the many British chamber works on the theme of 'Fantasy', some of which we have heard before in the Festival, brought into being by the Cobbett Competition that began in 1905. We end with Brahms's Second Piano Trio, which he completed at his favourite holiday resort, Bad Ischl, in the summer of 1882.