A captivating, expansive clarinet quintet by an important early Black British composer deservedly headlines a concert filled with discoveries. Here’s a scintillating Swiss (!) treatment of Irish folk music; vivid music for children from a twentieth-century Romantic; and a wistful waltz for a Georgian drawing room. At the centre is one of Elgar’s great, late chamber masterpieces. It was Elgar and his publisher August Jaeger (‘Nimrod’) who helped the young Samuel Coleridge-Taylor find his audience.

Frank Martin Trio on Irish folk themes | Elgar Violin sonata | Bridge Valse Russe | Walton Piano duets for children | Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Clarinet quintet in f-sharp minor, op.10

Every year the Oxford Chamber Music Festival brings together some of the most exciting classical musicians in Europe to live and play together for a week. Creative sparks fly as the musicians change musical partners and master the widest variety of sound-worlds.

This year’s festival celebrates the infinite variety of music from the British Isles, across four centuries and four nations: from Celtic folk influences to English pastoral; from Renaissance fantasy to Radiohead; from the internationally-celebrated Vaughan Williams, Elgar and Britten to hidden treasures and exciting finds by composers you may not even have heard of – yet!