It is extraordinary that Rebecca Clarke’s very distinctive musical personality could have been ignored for nearly seventy years. She was a gifted professional viola player, and her insider’s understanding of the special sound and expressive possibilities of the viola has ensured that her re-discovered Sonata has been played worldwide by a whole generation of grateful violists. Vaughan Williams’ haunting Studies are brief glimpses of a timeless beauty; Handel may have been born German and schooled in Italy, but by 1750 he had become the ebullient voice of baroque England.

Handel Violin sonata in D major, HWV371 | Vaughan Williams Six studies in English folksong | Rebecca Clarke Viola sonata

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!