United Kingdom Laura Samuel Memorial Concert: The Belcea Quartet, Stephanie Gonley, Benjamin Nabarro, Yuri Zhislin, Annabelle Meare, Katherine Gowers, David Routledge (violins), Scott Dickenson, Laurence Power (violas), Alice Neary, Amy Norrington, Adrian Brendel (cellos), Graham Mitchell (double bass), Richard Watkins (horn), Richard Hosford (clarinet), Mark Padmore (tenor), Ian Bostridge (tenor) Imogen Cooper, Julius Drake, Ryan Wigglesworth (pianos), Alasdair Tait, Martyn Brabbins (speakers). Wigmore Hall, London, 4.1.2026. (CSa)
Elgar – Larghetto from Serenade in E minor, Op.20
Haydn – Adagio sostenuto from String Quartet in G, Op.76 No.1
Schubert – Auf dem Strom, D943; An die Musik, D547; Du bist die Ruh, D776
Mendelssohn – Presto from Octet in E-flat, Op.20
David Raskin – Laura (1945) arranged by John Wilson
Alfred Brendel: A Musical Celebration: The Takács Quartet, Pierre-Laurant Aimard, Imogen Cooper, Tim Horton, Till Fellner, Paul Lewis, Sir András Schiff (pianos), Lisa Batiashvili (violin), Adrian Brendel (cello), Lucy Crowe (soprano), Dame Harriet Walter (reader), Orchestra of EnBrendelment / Sir Simon Rattle (conductor). Barbican Centre, London, 5.1.2026.
Haydn – The Representation of Chaos from The Creation; Allegro assai from Symphony No.90; Allegro moderato from String Quartet in F major, Op.77
Mozart – Andante from Violin Concerto No.4 in D; Ch’io mi Scordi di te? … Non temer, amato bene
Schubert – Adagio from String Quintet in C major; Allegro in A minor for Piano Duet, D947, Lebensstürme
Liszt – Elegie No.2 for cello and piano
JS Bach – Capriccio on the departure of a beloved friend
Mauricio Kagel – Hippocrates’ Oath for piano (3 left hands)
A selection of poems by Alfred Brendel with musical interjections:
Mauricio Kagel – March to Fall Short of Victory Nos: 5 &10
Kurtág – (thus it happened…), Hommage à Verdi; Pantomime, Dumb-show (quarrelling 2); Hommage à Jenny; Fundamentals; Hommage à Vidovsky; Walking
Ligeti – Etude No.10, Der Zauberlehling (start)
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op.37
It has been said that great musicians do not die; their music becomes memory. In two deeply moving but very different memorial concerts held recently, the lives of two supremely gifted artists were remembered by musical friends and colleagues in tributes where for the most part, music spoke louder than words. Prodigiously talented violinist Laura Samuel, a founding member of the Belcea Quartet and erstwhile Leader of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra was taken from us in November last year. She was only 48. The venerable pianist Alfred Brendel, considered by many to be one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, especially for the Classical and early Romantic repertoire, died in June 2025. He was 94.
The one-hour programme dedicated to Laura Samuel at Wigmore Hall on what would have been her 49th birthday was an intimate affair, and the first six items appeared to have been chosen for their gentle, introspective qualities. The recital opened with a gently breaking wave of melancholy: a tender yet restrained account by 13 of the assembled string players of the elegiac Larghetto from Elgar’s Serenade in E minor. After a few moments to move the furniture, four members of the ensemble, now re-constituted as the Belcea Quartet, gave us a serene, unhurried reading of the Adagio sostenuto from Haydn’s String Quartet in G, Op.76. Brahms was represented at his most autumnal and reflective when the Belcea, joined by Adrian Brendel on the cello and Dame Imogen Cooper at the keyboard offered a warm, consoling and thoughtfully paced Andante from his Piano Quintet in F minor.
Yet it was the choice of three late Schubert songs which helped us to meditate on love, loss and the inexorable passage of time. Scored for voice, piano and obligato horn, Auf dem Strom sets a poem by Ludwig Rellstab who used the river as a metaphor for the pain of separation as the singer’s beloved departs downstream and beyond reach. Mark Padmore’s finely expressive tenor gave the text genuine human feeling, while Imogen Cooper’s piano accompaniment gently undulated and Richard Watkins’s horn echoed across Schubert’s bleak musical landscape. In an unbroken atmosphere of spiritual calm, Ian Bostridge and pianist Julius Drake performed two contrasting songs with heartfelt beauty, the inward, prayer-like Du bist die Ruh and the openly affirmative An die Musik.
Ater a short, affectionate and observant eulogy from British conductor Martyn Brabbins, there was a sharp change of musical mood: the Presto finale from the 16-year-old Mendelssohn’s Octet in E. In the agile hands of the Belcea and the added heft of Laurence Power’s viola and Adrian Brendel’s cello, this incandescent burst of youthful energy shimmered and darted with diamond-tipped precision. We learned from Brabbins that Laura Samuel, who brought her chamber experience to a symphony orchestra believed that all orchestral music should aspire to chamber music. The programme closed with David Raksin’s Laura arranged by conductor John Wilson. Eleven strings, a single horn, one clarinet (Richard Hosford) and piano (Ryan Wigglesworth) played this sumptuous reimagining of one of Hollywood’s most famous movie songs with the delicacy and clarity of a chamber group.
The Musical Celebration in memory of the life of Alfred Brendel took place in the Barbican Hall. It fell on the evening of his 95th birthday. Like the concert dedicated to Laura Samuel, it was poignant but much grander and more expansive in scale. Sir Simon Rattle returned to London to conduct the cheekily named Orchestra of EnBrendelment – a one-off grouping of Brendel’s friends and colleagues – 45 leading musicians in all. The three-part, three-and-a-half-hour event also brought together a stellar roster of pianists, string players, soloists and chamber ensembles many of whom had collaborated or been mentored by Brendel himself. Some, such as Imogen Coper, Richard Hosford and the concert’s musical mastermind, Alfred’s son Adrian Brendal, had performed at Laura Samuel’s memorial the previous afternoon. The Barbican Hall, which seats almost 2,000 was sold-out, and a handsome programme booklet with striking photos and eloquent tributes had been produced to benefit the Alfred Brendel Young Musicians Trust.
What better or more striking way to start an evening dedicated to this renowned musician than the Representation of Chaos from Haydn’s The Creation, whose dissonances and jarring harmonies intended to evoke a world before light or natural law sound remarkably ordered to the modern ear. Brendel loved the music of Haydn, and Rattle coaxed from his hand-picked players an exquisitely coloured and arresting performance which reflected the dark almost eerie sonorities and dramatic tenseness intended by the composer. The humorous side of Haydn’s musical personality greatly appealed to Brendel and was perfectly represented in an extract from Symphony No. 90 in C, the teasing Allegro assai. Punctuated by false endings and long pauses, even the numerous musical cognoscenti in the audience were fooled into premature applause. The interaction between sections of the orchestra was perfectly calibrated and balanced, and the instrumental playing crystal clear and featherlight. In short, it was a symphonic movement played like a piece of chamber music. Laura Samuel would certainly have approved!
Brendel also loved Mozart and was one of the most masterful exponents of his piano works. But it was to be an extract from a Mozart violin concerto and an operatic concert aria which were chosen for the second part of the programme. The sublime songlike Andante from the Violin Concerto No.4 in D major was expressively played by Tbilisi-born Lisa Batiashvili, and the virtuosic concert aria for Soprano and Orchestra ‘Ch’io mi scordi di te? … Non temer, amato bene (Shall I forget you? … Do not fear, beloved one) was sung with elegance and agility by Lucy Crowe and enhanced by Imogen Cooper at the piano.
Part 2 featured a brief acknowledgment of Brendel’s penchant for Dadaesque humour with a rare performance of a comparatively unknown work: Mauricio Kagel’s five-minute long Hyppocrates’ Oath for piano (3 left hands). Written in 1984 for a publication of his work by a medical journal, Kagel used fragmentary keyboard rhythms, percussive taps and a large measure of absurdity to thumb his nose at musical convention and platform pomposity. On this occasion the three hands in question belonged to Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Tim Horton and Simon Rattle who also provided a dash of sly humour.
This deliciously ridiculous moment in the programme soon reverted to the sublime. There was more Haydn in the form of the final Allegro moderato from his late String Quartet in F major played with syncopated wit, exuberance and charm by the Takács Quartet. Schubert was well represented with an atmospheric performance of his turbulent Allegro in A minor for piano duet, Lebensstürme, with a tightly interlocked performance from Till Fellner on the upper keyboard and Paul Lewis providing the thunderous bass. and extract from Schubert’s String Quintet in C, in which the Takàcs and Brendel the younger revealed the Adagio’s solemn beauty and hymn-like revery. This was perhaps one of the most deeply touching contributions of the evening, and one which doubtless left many in the audience yearning for the beauty and vibrant energy of the unplayed movements. A beautiful recital of Liszt’s little known Elegie No.2 also featured, with Brendel the son paying a touching filial tribute to his father. Part 2 concluded with another transformative moment, Bach’s Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother. Here, as in the unannounced aria from the Goldberg Variations, Sir András Schiff brought buoyancy and contrapuntal clarity to the work’s dance-like moments, his technical perfection suffused with a sense of deeply personal affection for a lost friend.
Part 3 can best be described as a veritable gallimaufry of the surreal. Kagel’s March to Fall Short of Victory Nos: 5 and 10, offered two deadpan parodies of triumphal music played by a troupe of mock soldiers (Royal College of Music students in full Grenadier kit and busbies), whose clownish antics ensured that victory was just out of reach. Between short bursts of pastiche musical miniatures by Hungarian composer György Kurtàg, hammered out by a straight-faced Aimard, we heard a selection of Brendel’s wry poetry, authoritatively recited by Dame Harriet Walters. Those who have never encountered The Coughers of Cologne who joined forces with the Cologne Clappers to ensure that its concert-going members ‘coughed distinctively during expressive silences’, nor read the whimsical Paradise where ‘the deaf listen to music while musicians have fallen silent’, are advised to do so immediately. They are in for a treat.
The last work to be heard – happily in its entirety, was by Beethoven. His intense, defiant Piano Concerto No.3 magisterially played by one of Brendel’s most distinguished former pupils, Paul Lewis. Alternately poetic and impassioned, Lewis engaged in a compelling conversation with the orchestra, honouring his master’s memory in a life-enhancing performance which will long be remembered. As the audience dispersed into the night, one was reminded that memorial concerts such as this are not intended as an ending, but as a continuation and celebration of life -through sound, memory and love.
Chris Sallon
Featured Image: Sir Simon Rattle and members of the Orchestra of EnBrendelment © Chris Christodoulou