Fenella Humphreys & Joseph Tong

Event details

Fenella Humphreys  violin
Joseph Tong  piano

Beethoven   Violin Sonata no. 8 in G, op. 30, no. 3
Joseph Phibbs   Violin Sonata
Sibelius   Violin Sonatina in E, op. 80
Sibelius   Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, op. 115
Franck   Violin Sonata in A

Winner of BBC Music Magazine's Instrumental Award in 2018 and Premiere Recording Award in 2023, Fenella Humphreys is admired by audiences the world over for the grace and intensity of her playing. She is joined by the renowned British pianist Joseph Tong in a programme featuring a selection of the best-loved pieces in the repertoire.

Composed during the last fifteen years of his life, Franck's Violin Sonata marked a turning point in his career. Encouraged by his pupils at the Paris Conservatoire, the Belgian-French composer shifted his focus from writing church music to chamber music. The dramatic and triumphant Sonata was written as a wedding present for the virtuoso violinist Eugène Ysaÿe and includes moments that evoke a marriage ceremony, such as the suggestion of wedding bells in the final movement.

Beethoven composed his Eighth Violin Sonata in the weeks following the Heiligenstadt Testament. Joyful and exuberant, the Sonata stands in stark contrast to the famous letter the composer wrote to his brothers expressing his anguish over losing his hearing. The music can be seen as an example of Beethoven's renewed faith in both life and his art.

The two works by Sibelius featured in the programme also emerged during significant moments in the composer's life. His Violin Sonatina was premiered as part of the celebrations for his fiftieth birthday in December 1915, and the Four Pieces for Violin and Piano were composed during the so-called 'Silence from Järvenpää' – a thirty-year period at the end of his life in which Sibelius did not produce any major compositions.

'Humphreys's utter absorption and delight shines forth at every turn … strong-toned, easy fluidity and immaculate technique' (Gramophone)