Chichester Chamber Concerts launches its 23rd season with a busy programme in the Assembly Room, Chichester from October to March.
Thursday 1st October – CHAOS QUARTET
Thursday 5th November – ENSEMBLE ZEITGEIST (Zeitgeist Trio with violist Alinka Rowe)
Thursday 3rd December – ENSEMBLE AUGELLETTI (New Generation Baroque Ensemble)
Thursday 28th January – SACCONI QUARTET
Thursday 25th February – FIBONACCI QUARTET
Wednesday 24th March – CHAMBER MUSIC BOX
Thursday 15th April – DANIEL LEBHARDT at Champs Hill Music Room
Artists featured
Of the seven groups and soloists visiting us this season, only two have been before, the Sacconi String Quartet and our Champs Hill recitalist Daniel Lebhart. We have our recently appointed Artistic Director Anna Starkey to thank for introducing no less than five new groups.
The first of these, in October, is the Chaos String Quartet. They challenge us with a very original programme: after the E-flat major Quartet by the 16 year-old Schubert, they bring us Webern and then a quartet by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, better known for his film music.
Our November visitors are a piano trio plus a violist, known jointly as Ensemble Zeitgeist. These four players often work together allowing Trio Zeitgeist to enjoy the riches of the Piano Quartet repertoire in addition to that for piano trio.
Our first period instrument group for five years plays a special Christmas programme in December. Ensemble Augelletti specialise in 17th and 18th century repertoire that tells stories.
The celebrated Sacconi String Quartet return after an amazing thirteen years absence to start our Beethoven bicentennial year with a programme of his quartets.
In February the young Fibonacci String Quartet come for the first time with a programme including both a Martinů and a Tchaikovsky Quartet not performed for us since the very early days of CCC.
To end the season at the Assembly Room, the March concert sees the Chamber Music Box, a septet who will bring an orchestral flavour to their programme with an arrangement of a Symphonic Poem by Richard Strauss as well as pieces by Schubert, Nielsen and Beethoven.
The recital at Champs Hill in April gives us another chance to hear Hungarian pianist Daniel Lebhardt. Daniel plays a varied programme including three more works by Beethoven along with music by Chopin and Szymnanowski, and a world premiere of a piece by Matthew Kaner.
CCC wishes to thank Kirker Holidays for Sponsoring the Sacconi Quartet and the Fibonacci Quartet.
This Season’s Musical Highlights
Beethoven died in 1827, 200 years ago, so our 2026-27 season manages to pack in eight works between January and April. In January the Sacconi Quartet play an all-Beethoven programme. Though they start with the last of the Opus 18 Quartets, the rest of the programme, Op.130, Op.133 and Op.135, are all from the series known as the Late Quartets, making this the central concert in terms of both content and our calendar.
The Chamber Music Box perform Beethoven’s Septet Op.20, a work rarely performed because of its unusual instrumental grouping. It is to our benefit that a similar diversity of instruments is needed for an arrangement of Richard Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel and Nielsen’s whimsical and entertaining Serenata in Vano. Schubert’s lovely String Trio completes their programme.
For his April Champs Hill recital Daniel Leberhardt also includes a piece of late Beethoven, his Piano Sonata Op.101, plus a pair of his smaller compositions. You can be sure more Beethoven will follow in the Autumn of 2027.
Moving away from LvB the Chaos Quartet, as well as an early quartet by Schubert, bring us the second work of 2026 from Anton Webern. His challenging compositions are always short, though full of ideas packed close together. Not satisfied with one unusual piece the Chaos Quartet also perform Korngold’s Second Quartet, a composer and work we have never had at CCC.
The Ensemble Zeitgeist play Brahms Op.26 Piano Quartet and a very welcome major quartet by Gabriel Fauré. The audience will wonder why it is so rarely done.
An unusual baroque concert is promised by Ensemble Augelletti in December who play seasonal music by no less than twelve Baroque masters several of whom will be new names for many of us.
The Fibonacci Quartet are particularly welcome for playing a masterly string quartet by Tchaikovsky whose chamber music is unjustifiably neglected and for the first time in seventeen years, a quartet by Martinů, as well as one of Mozart’s Prussian Quartets.
Pictured: Ensemble Augelletti
