The week ahead on Essential Classics – Quartetto Italiano and Alex Jennings
Dominic Wells
Assistant Producer, Essential Classics
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Welcome to the Essential Classics Blog, where you can find out what’s coming up in the week ahead. This week we’ve got one of the very finest chamber ensembles as our Artists of the Week – the Quartetto Italiano – and our guest, amidst the Britten 100 celebrations, is an actor who has played the role of Britten on stage: Alex Jennings.
Artists of the Week
Quartetto Italiano
Remarkably, during its impressive 35-year span (1945-1980), three members of the Quartetto Italiano remained the same – only the violist changed (no viola jokes, thank you). The group’s repertoire is mainly concentrated in the Austro-German tradition, though we’ve found a lovely live recording - made at the Royal Festival Hall in 1965 - of Boccherini’s brief ‘La Tiranna Spagnola’. Other delights we’ll be featuring include string quartets by Beethoven (his final quartet, Op. 135), Haydn (Op. 76 No. 3), Schubert (the ‘Rosamunde’), and Ravel.
Guest
Alex Jennings
Our guest this week this week is well known for his portrayals on both stage and screen. In addition to several award-winning performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Alex Jennings has acted as Benjamin Britten in Alan Bennett’s 2009 play, The Habit of Art, which centres on a fictional meeting between Britten and W.H.Auden. Rob will be asking Alex about how he prepared for this and other roles, as well as his musical choices in response to the Essential Classics Questionnaire.
That’s all for this week, but remember if you’d like to get in touch, do feel free to post a comment, or you can get in touch via email or Twitter:
Email: essentialclassics@bbc.co.uk
Twitter: #essentialclassics
