The 10th Tetbury Music Festival 2012
Thursday 4th October - Sunday 7th October 2012
                                   It's over!

Unfortunately Dame Mitsuko Uchida was obliged by her physician to cancel all her engagements over the next few weeks. As someone who very rarely cancels engagements, Mitsuko Uchida was hugely disappointed not to be performing in Tetbury this October. She sends her apologies to you all and hopes to be able to replace this date in the future.

Fortunately Paul Lewis agreed to give the opening concert of the Festival. We were extremely grateful to him for agreeing to replace Dame Mitsuko at short notice. Paul Lewis gave an all-Schubert programme, Sonatas 19, 20 and 21.

The wonderful Sixteen returned to us to perform Brahms' Requiem, in Brahms' own version for chamber choir and piano duet. These resources, particularly with the passion and precision of the Sixteen's singing, allow this well-known and deeply moving work to be heard with a degree of intimacy and clarity which is impossible in the orchestral version. The concert opens with one of the finest anthems for unaccompanied double choir in the English choral repertoire.

Vibrant, colourful and highly engaging playing from one of England's best known piano trios, Gould Piano Trio. A delightful programme, with Faure's dreamy trio, Schumann's reflective Adagio and Allegro, Jancek's energetic and unusual violin sonata, and the virtuosic and towering piano trio by Beethoven. A treat.

Jonathan Cohen returned with the extraordinarily wonderful instrumental playing of Arcangelo. The programme was a celebration of some of the most joyful and tuneful concertos by J. S. Bach - with a little help from Telemann - particularly featuring the strings, flutes and recorders. The programme ended with Bach's famous and exquisite double violin concerto, with a slow movement that was simply a pure and painless love duet for the two violins.

For the Festival Service this year, the music all came from the English choral tradition, with Romantic and rich choral and organ writing from Harold Darke and Edward Elgar.

For the closing concert Peter Harvey, acclaimed in his own right as a bass of the highest quality in baroque and early music, brought the Magdalena Consort, a stellar line-up of singers, together with period strings, sackbuts and cornets, to perform Montiverdi's Vespers of 1610, one of the most loved, most creative, most substantial and most satisfying large-scale works of the period; the rich sounds and harmonies truly rang round the church's gothic arches.

Save the East Window of St Marys' Tetbury

£85,000 is needed to save this beautiful 140 year old window. This year Tetbury Music Festival is supporting and fund-raising to help. Please give generously to the cause. Collections at the Church. Much fuller details on St Marys' Church website, or donate online NOW!

Some of the concerts were sell-outs before the event, so you might want to take advantage of priority booking for next year by becoming a Dolphin.

We look forward to seeing you next year.

Graham Kean and Elise Smith, Co-Directors for 2012