Unbroken Threads (Mary Hofman, violin; Richard Ormrod, piano)

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Unbroken Threads features works by five British composers, performed by violinist Mary Hofman and pianist Richard Ormrod.

The three newest works – by Welsh composers Rhian Samuel, Hilary Tann and Sarah Lianne Lewis – were commissioned by Rhyl Music Club for the Beethoven-250 anniversary, to respond directly to Beethoven’s sonatas for violin and piano, and were performed by the duo in music clubs around Wales, alongside the complete Beethoven sonatas.

Rhian Samuel’s compelling three-movement Sonata for Violin and Piano focuses on the relationship between contrasting themes; in Until the thread breaks, Sarah Lianne Lewis examines themes of attachment and explores the edges of the audience’s own hearing; while Hilary Tann’s First Light is a meditation on the first movement of Beethoven’s last violin sonata, Op. 96.

1              Hilary Tann (1947), First Light: A Meditation on Beethoven Op. 96, first movement

2-4          Rhian Samuel (1944), Sonata for violin and piano

5              Sarah Lianne Lewis (1988), Until the thread breaks

6              Eleanor Alberga (1949), The Wild Blue Yonder

7              Steph Power (1965), Dreamtides