Miklós Perényi opens the programme with Bach’s Solo Suite No 3. For Perényi, the Bach Suites “represent a vast interpretative challenge. In any given moment there are so many different aspects requiring a decision, above all in the linear polyphonies, and at every point we have to make our own judgement.” 

The closing work in the programme is Brahms’ expansive Sonata No 2 in F major, which is preceded by the Sonata in C that Benjamin Britten composed for Mstislav Rostropovich and premiered with the Russian cellist in 1961. 

Dénes Várjon, who studied chamber performance with György Kurtág, relishes the challenge of following in the footsteps of Britten, whom he describes as “a fantastic pianist”, while Perényi observes that: “Each movement is very economical, and seems to be on a small scale, but each is a major intellectual and aesthetic achievement.” 

The encore presented by Perényi and Várjon is the Largo from the Chopin’s Cello Sonata in G minor – a work that Perényi first played at the age of 14, and which featured with Schumann and Kodály on his first-ever LP, recorded in the mid-1960s when he was still a teenager. 

“[Perényi is] a figure of true artistic stature … [of] innate intelligence, skill and insight” The Strad

“[Perényi] inhabits the music at a profound level and is surely one of the masters of structure in the core repertoire” BBC Music Magazine