Classical preview

REVOLUTIONARY: Benjamin Frit and his colleagues in the Gould Piano Trio, Lucy Gould and Alice Neary.

‘One hardly needs an excuse to programme such sumptuous and compelling works as these large scale Russian Masterpieces, but in the centenary year of the Russian Revolution we have the opportunity to hear the more familiar alongside some less frequently performed pieces’, he comments.

Tchaikovsky dominates, his Piano Trio, a score of epic demands, ending the first concert, with his picture-book Souvenir de Florence and the First String Quartet the featured works on November 28 and February 13.

Reprising one of their greatest triumphs, Frith joins with Peter Hill in a performance of Stravinsky’s ballet, The Rite of Spring, in a version for four-handed piano (December 12), with another rarely heard arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade for clarinet and string quartet made by the composer (January 23).

Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on poems of Alexander Block has the famous Russian soprano, Ilobas Domnich, as soloist (March 6), and his Fifth String Quartet is included on February 13. The guests for the series are the Navarra String Quartet who open their concert with Arensky’s gorgeous Second String Concert (November 28).

Tickets 0113 3780318 or www.leedsconcerts.com