Mozart in the perfect setting - Lammermuir Festival

Stenton is one of my favourite East Lothian villages, and its William Burn-designed village church (1829) one of my favourite East Lothian buildings. If you know Burn’s St John’s Episcopal Church at the West End of Princes Street in Edinburgh, you’ll recognise Stenton Parish Church as a miniature version, with its stately, perfectly proportioned square tower. Inside, its high-roofed, austere simplicity is a superb setting for chamber music. The Hebrides Ensemble, another distinguished Scottish group making their Lammermuir Festival debut, will sound wonderful there. I’ve already blogged about the great Mozart Trio, K563 which will form the climax of their afternoon concert on our first Sunday, September 18. Anybody who thinks string trios are a poor man’s quartets should hear this masterpiece, conceived on the grandest possible scale! Before it they play some tiny miniatures by Kurtág, that most enigmatic of modern composers. And they start with an ‘unfinished’ work (yes, there’s more than one!) by Schubert – this little Trio in B flat:

Hugh Macdonald – Director, Lammermuir Festival