In this ‘Coffee Concert’, violinist Hakan Şensoy and cellist Bernhard Lörcher (a soloist with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra) play works by Mozart – his String Duo No 1 in G major, K 423, a piece originally written for violin and viola in 1783 but played on this occasion in an arrangement for violin and cello; Ravel (his Sonata for Violin and Cello, written between 1920 and 1922 – this piece is dedicated to Debussy, who had died in 1918); Kodály (his 1914 Duo for Violin and Cello, written while war was looming – John Henken’s programme notes on the ‘Hollywood Bowl’ website tell us that ‘The tensions of the time are quite apparent in the emotionally harrowing Duo, but so is Kodály’s gift for melody’); and the Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935).
Halvorsen, an accomplished violinist, served as a concertmaster in Bergen and Aberdeen before becoming successively a professor of music in Helsinki; a student of music in St Petersburg, Leipzig, Berlin and Liège; and a conductor in Norway. He married Edvard Grieg’s niece. Halvorsen’s 1897 Passacaglia in G minor is based on a theme from a harpsichord suite by Handel. Note that a performance by Cihat Aşkın and Emir Kemancı of an arrangement of this work for two violins is available on YouTube.
The ‘Coffee Concerts’ are sponsored by Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi, the leading purveyor of Turkish coffee.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
