Elgar’s Piano Quintet was composed while the Elgars were staying at Brinkwells Cottage in Sussex. This inspirational setting sparked the composer’s imagination: as the summer of 1918 turned to autumn Elgar began composing the Quintet, a work of lyrical beauty that’s infused with the melancholy of the turning of the seasons.

But it’s hard to imagine that this nostalgia does not also reflect a longing for the times before the First World War, and Ireland’s trio, written at much the same time, deals with these subjects directly. He told the cellist Florence Hooton that the grim march depicts the “young soldiers going over the top” but this is not music that glorifies war. Rather, it evokes “the beauty that remained on the earth amidst the carnage and inhumanity of the battle.”

*Please note that a very limited amount of tickets are available on the door for this concert.