A Tognetti/Leschenko treat

Battered sheet music waiting to be played.

The Polina Leschenko (piano) and Richard Tognetti (violin) concert at the Angel Place hall last week was a winner. They will play together in November this year at the Barbican in London and this was a sort of preliminary concert. After a marvelous Beethoven/Sculthorpe/Pärt/Brahms concert they played three encores, so lucky were we.

I was seated behind the musicians and couldn't help but notice that when Tognetti has room to move about the stage he gets on his surf board to play the energetic parts.  I couldn't resist drawing the surfboard into the little postcard sketch I made while they played.

Dvorák, with a spring in his step

From left: From left: Richard Tognetti, Satu Vänskä,

Polina Leschenko, Nathan Braude, Jaka Stadler

Tonight's concert at the Maribor Music Festival was a delight. Gifted young pianist Polina  Leschenko and viola player Nathan Baude played work by by Rebecca Clarke and Frederic Chopin.

They were then joined by violinists Richard Tognetti and Satu Vänskä and cellist Jaka Stadler to play Antonin Dvorák's Piano Quintet #2 in A major which has a very strong melody line.  I can hear people whistling it in the hotel hallway as I write.