UKC

Another wonderful evening of chamber music at Yewfield yesterday. I must confess that the musicians were people I’d never heard of before, but they turned out to be a very special pairing of young players, namely Hetty Haynes (violin) and Charlie Woof-Byrne (piano). They played with verve and subtlety a generous and gradually climaxing programme, beginning with a Schubert sonatina, then some shorter pieces by Clara Schumann and Lili Boulanger took us to an interval. A beautiful performance of Brahms Op 100 sonata followed and the evening concluded with a thrilling rendition of the Debussy sonata, one of his last few compositions and his last performed work. A really superb evening in a lovely setting.

How was the encore?

There was none.

Please enlighten those of us living 200 miles (possibly) further south-east, where  Yewfield is, and what it's provenance is. How easy is it to get tickets? Does it feel like a really good venue from the point of acoustic function and response? Is there the feeling of being in a settled and reassuring chamber, etc?

Sorry, that was my poor attempt at a joke following your identical double-posting about the concert. 😉

I didn’t t realise.

If you search Yewfield music you’ll find their website. It’s near Hawkshead. It is a vegetarian guest house belonging to Derek Hook who founded the well known Zefferellis restaurant and cinema in Ambleside. Derek has been hosting musical evenings at Yewfield for over 25 years. He puts on about 6 concerts per year in a beautiful lounge which can seat around 35 people, just the sort of setting for which much chamber music was written. While I’m no expert, I find the acoustic and the ambience quite wonderful. Derek owns a Steinway.

Thank you.

So probably tickets not easy to come by, unless you are oh the ball.

Will you be on the ball for buying proms tickets? The new director seems to be keeping on in a similar vein. Some interesting stuff around the provinces too. I wish that I could go to the "shipping forecast" in Northern Ireland, for instance. I'm looking forward to it.

It is normally a sell out. We usually apply a month or more in advance and that usually works.

We went to one Prom last year. A pretty awful process. We got one of the boxes quite far round on the left with an impeded view, and we could see better ones on our right with no-one in them! I wrote a letter of complaint, which was batted away. I don’t think we’ll bother this year. I must say that living where we do London for concerts doesn’t appeal all that much. 

Go for a weekend and buy a promming weekend ticket. Find a reasonable place to stay that is not the Ritz and this far off is cheaper too.

Promming in the Arena is far better for the view and the sound. It's also cheaper. 

Weekend tickets go on sale on the 15th of this month of May, and earlier than most of the other tickets. If you wanted I could talk to you nearer the time, and even meet you if you and your partner wanted.

Thanks for the info and suggestions. I’m afraid we couldn’t do promming as Debbie is unable to stand up for more than a few minutes. We’re away from home just now, but will see if any weekend concerts appeal. I noticed Mahler 3 is on sometime which would be a big draw for us.