Jörg Widmann . Steven Isserlis . Dénes Várjon

You must have been totally blown away when Jörg Widmann played the Mozart Clarinet Quintet with the Minguet Quartet just a few seasons ago. Widmann is undoubtedly one of today's most notable German composers. And what comes as more of a surprise is that he is a pretty good clarinettist; and that's putting it mildly. We are very pleased that he has granted our request to devote his entire concert to the clarinet trio, one of the most beautiful combinations in the chamber music repertoire. Beethoven was one the pioneering forces in this genre. In the wake of his popular 'Gassenhauertrio' in the 19th century, an entire series of trios followed for clarinet, cello and piano. The clarinet trio by Brahms came into being just around the period that Brahms had actually decided to stop composing. But after hearing Richard Mühlfeld from Meiningen play, he was again inspired to pick up his pen. Jörg Widmann has himself experimented a little with the genre too. The finely differentiated and rich array of sound textures which characterises his playing filters through into his compositions. The 1998 'Nachtstück' simulates the way our ears, which Nietzsche describes as our "nocturnal eyes", explore a dark and expansive sound landscape.