Our repertoire ranges from duos to work for sinfonietta-sized ensembles, and we regularly work with guest artists to expand our programming possibilities.
Sample programmes
2024-25 season
1-hour concert | Fugues and canons, old and new
Although synonymous with the baroque, the contrapuntal forms of fugue and canon have enjoyed several periods of renewed interest. Mozart’s language was immeasurably deepened on his introduction to the music of Handel and Bach at the house of his friend Gottfried van Swieten, and Haydn’s quartet borrows a fugal theme from Handel’s Messiah. Stravinsky’s Double Canon recalls Webern in its icy beauty, whist the Austrian composer’s own quartet is structured around a motto spelling out the name of a hero, B-A-C-H.
Mozart: Adagio and Fugue K. 546
Stravinsky: Double Canon
L. Berkeley: Canon in Memoriam I.S.
Webern: Quartet op. 28
Haydn: Quartet op. 20 no. 5
Full-length concert | Voices: Elsewhere and elsewhen
Debussy and Ravel were both commissioned by rival harp manufacturers to write pieces demonstrating their competing designs. The resulting works outlived the short commercial spat, enriching the harp’s repertoire and accepted voice along the way. Berio’s Sequenza IXa for clarinet looks back on its own instrument’s wide-ranging voice as conceived by artists from Mozart to Benny Goodman. Folk songs real, fake and inaccurately transcribed jostle in Berio’s Folksongs, written for his then wife Cathy Berberian, whilst Stravinsky’s late settings of Shakespeare make something rich and strange of familiar texts.
Ravel: Introduction and Allegro
Berio: Sequenza IXa for clarinet
Bartok: violin duos (selection)
Stravinsky: 3 Shakespeare Songs
Interval
Debussy: Danses sacrée et profane
Berio: violin duos (selection)
Berio: Folksongs
1-hour or full-length concert | Dorothy Howell and her world
The Berkeley Ensemble has long championed the music of Dorothy Howell since we reconstructed her ‘lost’ String Quartet in D minor in 2018. This concert presents Howell in her milieu, with her music alongside works by her teachers at the Royal Academy of Music, Tobias Matthay and John Blackwood McEwen. The full-length version includes music by Edward Elgar, a towering figure of her earlier life, and whose grave she tended in the Malvern Hills.
1-hour programme
Tobias Matthay Piano Quartet in C Op. 20
Dorothy Howell Quartet in D minor
John Blackwood McEwen Nugae, seven bagatelles for string quartet (selection)
Frank Bridge Minatures for piano trio (selection)
Full-length concert
Tobias Matthay Piano Quartet in C Op. 20
Dorothy Howell Adagio and Caprice for violin and piano
Dorothy Howell Quartet in D minor
John Blackwood McEwen Nugae, seven bagatelles for string quartet (selection)
Interval
Edward Elgar Piano Quintet in A minor Op. 84