Gary Cooper & Rachel Podger Showcase acclaimed Mozart Cycle at London's Wigmore Hall

01 February 2008

Gary Cooper and Rachel Podger played at the Royal Northern College of Music this month in their Mozart Festival with a programme of Mozart Sonatas for Keyboard and Violin :

"One of the undoubted highlights was a recital in which Rachel Podger and Gary Cooper played six of the duos for violin and piano ... brilliantly ... impassioned ... enthralling."

Paul Driver, Sunday Times

Volume 5 of their Complete Mozart Cycle for Channel Classics will be in the shops soon but you can hear them live :

• Saturday 26 January Brecon - a special concert in Brecon for the Mozart Music Fund founded by Rachel Podger
• Thursday 31st January BBC In-Tune from c.6pm, where they will play and talk with Sean Rafferty about their Mozart experience (also available on line and on listen again at www.bbc.co.uk)
• Friday 1st February Wigmore Hall, 7.30pm, for a showcase of their favourites over the cycle

FULL DETAILS SEE BELOW

GARY COOPER & RACHEL PODGER

The partnership of violinist Rachel Podger and keyboard player Gary Cooper has taken them worldwide in concert. Their venture to record, for Channel Classics, the Complete Mozart Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin, has already been universally acclaimed. The first four volumes have been showered with awards and accolades, including three Diapason d’Or and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Gary and Rachel are celebrating the release of Volume 5 with this long-awaited Wigmore Hall showcase of the series.

• Mozart : Sonatas for Keyboard and Violin
• Wigmore Hall, London
• Friday 1st February, 2008, 7.30pm
• Rachel Podger and Gary Cooper launch volume 5 of acclaimed Mozart cycle with Wigmore Hall showcase for Channel Classics (volume 5 of the projected 8 disc set)
• 3 Diapason d’Or and 2 Gramophone Editors Choice for volumes 1 – 4
• CD signing

Rachel & I have loved every minute of exploring Mozart's wonderfully rich & varied sonatas for keyboard & violin - sonatas which represent so many of the key moments in the composer's life & development, from precocious talent age 7, on a Grand Tour of Europe, to 32 year old troubled genius, completing his last three symphonies. Through this cycle of works, spanning almost his entire career, we are reminded afresh of the extraordinary talent hitting Paris and London in 1764; of something new & profound in his writing, arising out of the death of his mother in 1778; and, at the height of his powers in the Vienna of the 1780s, chamber music which quite simply takes the breath away. Gary Cooper

PROGRAMME 1

• Mozart – Violin Sonata in F K. 377
• Mozart – Violin Sonata in E minor K. 304
• Mozart - Violin Sonata in Bb K. 454
• Mozart – Violin Sonata in F K. 30
• Mozart – Six Variations in G minor ‘Hélas, j’ai perdu mon amant’ K. 374b
• Mozart – Violin Sonata in A K. 526

The Instruments :
* Gary Cooper’s Fortepiano: Anton Walter, Vienna 1795 copy by Derek Adlam, 1987
* Rachel Podger’s Violin : Pesarinius, Genoa 1739, Classical bow - Pierre Patigny, 2001.

Suffering from Mozart fatigue from last year’s centenary wallow? Listen to Podger and Cooper and rejuvenation is immediate. The fourth CD in their keyboard and violin cycle criss-crosses between sonatas early and late. Pianos can be dull dogs, but not in Gary Coopers’ case – he is nimble and expressive. And nothing is beyond Rachel Podger’s gut-string violin, not even silky delicacy. ”Magnificent Mozart playing from a terrific duo.” The Times

For more information on Gary Cooper and his Mozart cycle

For more information on Gary Cooper

For more information on Rachel Podger

For more information on Channel Classics

Download a full press release here

Download a leaflet (front cover) here

Download a leaflet (back cover) here

Download a Mozart Music Fund leaflet here

For tickets call +44 (0) 207 935 2141 or visit Wigmore Hall

Presentation: LoganArts Management in collaboration with Moens Artist Management and Channel Classics Records