Friends and colleagues working side by side in the musical melting pot of fin-de-siecle Paris form the connective tissue in this attractive and smartly curated programme by violist Timothy Ridout and pianist Jonathan Ware.
They open with Léon Honnoré’s engaging Morceau de concert, premiered in 1904 by viola pupils at the Paris Conservatoire where, remarkably, the instrument had only been admitted to the curriculum 10 years earlier. Criticised at the time for requiring the violist to play harmonics – supposedly the exclusive purview of the violin – itemerges here as a zesty showpiece with a melodic heart and more than a hint of Beethoven. It pairs nicely with Henri Büsser’s moody C-sharp minor Appassionato, dispatched with a stormy flourish by Ridout whose playing throughout bristles with imagination.
