Saturday chamber music: Liszt Museum/Old Academy of Music Chamber Hall. Sept 18th 2021

I was introduced to this series by two good friends LH and JH and am very grateful to them for this. It’s a great time and takes one just nicely up to the time for a light lunch.

I assume these musicians (a piano quartet) are teachers at the academy and the concert being done without an interval was an excellent idea. Each piece was introduced, at some length, in Hngarian and English - but the mike was poor and I struggled to hear the English version.The opening work - Mozart Piano Quartet No 2 - was, for the first three movements as fluent and easy as ever, only very rarely veering into glibness. But the final movement was in a different world with some remarkable plunges (to my ears) into remotely-related minor keys.

The following three Romances for violin and piano were, I glancingly assumed, by Schumann and as they unfolded I thought that I should definitely further explore him - he is not a composer whom I know at all. But I was surprised at the end to see that they were by Clara S - and so she is mpost certainly worth further looking at and listening to. Wonder what the Idagio app will have?

The final work was the Schumann Piano Quartet which, I am afraid, rather confirmed my lack of interest in further exploring his music…

But I had a great time and this is going to be a regular slot for me I think.

Concerto Budapest. Liszt Academy concert hall. Oct 17th 2021

Ena Miyachi & Sohey Yamagami. Champion Wines, Budapest. Oct 14th 2020