On Sunday 27th February 2011 twenty BBCM children and twenty-one BBCM adults (that is, sixteen BBCM parents and five participants from the adult class) attended the violin-piano recital given by violinist Vadim Gluzman and his pianist wife Angela Yoffe at the Wigmore Hall. Below see reviews (of various lengths) of the event and our group photograph with the artists.

I loved the way the violinist and the pianist played the instruments.
I liked the music because they didn’t make any mistake.
I really enjoyed the concert because I conducted the music all the time like we do in Agnes’ classes.
Carolina Di Cecio, age 4

I was amazed by how the music was hard to play and they were able to do it. I believe that they practice every day. The instruments were having a chat together. I felt I was participating as well.
I thought that it was better than watching a DVD because it was easier to hear the sound of music. It was hard to decide whose autograph to get because both musicians played very well.
It was an exciting day out with Agnes and my friends.
Clara Heck, age 6

Last Sunday I went with my music class to listen to a violin and piano concert in Wigmore Hall. Agnes already took me to an Opera but this was the first time I was attending a concert with the adults! I particularly liked the violin. I guess it is because there is something melancholic to the sounds of this instrument. I noticed as well how much the pianist was looking at the violinist to make sure that they are all the time playing together.
My mummy liked also very much the concert. She told me she was very moved in particular by the Kaddish piece, which is a prayer for the dead in the Jewish religion.
Thanks Agnes for such a nice outing!
Naomi Walden, age 6

On Sunday I went to the Wigmore Hall in the morning. I have been here before to see my sister Sophia [Dignam] play with her string Quartet.
We sat upstairs on the really high part in the front, I had a special cushion to make me even higher but it was not comfortable!!!
The piano was very long and very shiny and black and had a big lid.
The violin was small. It was shaped like an eight and had thin, long strings.
The piano was loud but the violin was EVEN louder. This is because the violinist was rough and strong and he played it as if he was making fire!!!
I recognised the piece by Beethoven because we had listened to it with Agnes in our class.
After the concert we waited in a long queue to see the performers and when we saw them they had a big smile!!
Hector Di Zenzo, age 6

At the Wigmore Hall we heard the combination of violin and piano. The piano sounds rather different from the violin so off-sets it. The piano was pure and crystal clear, many notes bouncing off the walls like sparkles. The violin was smooth and broad and you felt it rather than heard it.
The two pieces I liked best were also contrasting. The first was the finale of Beethoven’s Kreutzer sonata. I was feeling a bit lulled by the end of the slow movement, but the jaunty rhythm of the finale made me want to jump up and dance! My other favourite was the Jewish lament. This music was even more dramatic and emotional and true. I felt like the violin sound was almost grabbing me. I liked the way the music was distinctive and sad but not exactly in sad minor.
The artists were very nice to us after.
This was the first grown up chamber music concert I’ve been to and I’d really like to go to more! It also really makes me want to play a stringed instrument, as well as the piano.
Aria Watts, age 6

I went to see a concert at the Wigmore Hall. It was nice and relaxing. The instruments were basic, and the sort that you see more than other instruments. The instruments were a violin and piano. The concert was long and the musicians played a lot of pieces. Afterwards we got to meet the musicians and I liked them. They gave me their autographs and tried not to scare us about how much they have to practise.
Asa Campbell, age 7.

My favourite piece was Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Op. 4 ‘Kreutzer’. I also liked Violin Sonata in D Op. 9 No. 3. I liked Kreutzer because it has a lot of major in it.
I liked the whole concert quite a lot because the violin made a good contrast to the piano. I like the artists because it looked like they were really enjoying playing their instruments. At the end of the concert we met the artists. The violinist’s name was Vadim Gluzman and the pianist’s name was Angela Yoffe. The violin was the main part, but the piano still had some very tricky bits.
Francesca Di Cecio, age 7

I went to this concert at the Wigmore Hall on 27.02.2011 with a group of children from my music class and our teacher Agnes.
We saw the violinist Vadim Gluzman and his wife pianist Angela Yoffe. They played beautiful music together. I especially liked the Beethoven Kreutzer Sonata which we had listened to in our music class. It really did sound like a conversation between the violin and the piano.
The concert hall was beautiful and I kept looking at the picture with angels over the stage.
After the concert we got to meet the musicians and they were nice to us. They signed their names on my programme and I will treasure this.
Vadim told me that I had to practise every day to be a good violinist. They also said that they have a daughter who is my age who also plays violin.
I had a very good time listening to music that was very touching and meeting the musicians.
Sophie Chin, age 7

On Sunday the 27th of February, I went to the Wigmore Hall with my family (my mum, my dad and my little sister Tilia), my music teacher (Agnes Kory, who had organised the outing) and friends from the BBCM;
We went to see Angela Yoffe play the piano and Vadim Gluzman play the violin. They played three pieces, one by Jean-Marie Leclair, Ludwig van Beethoven (which we had listened to in class with our music teacher) and Maurice Ravel.
I sat with my dad in the stalls. From where I was, I could see Vadim Gluzman clearly and Angela Yoffe not so well, but I could still see the person who was turning the pages. My sister sat with my mum on the balcony. The four of us had a great time watching the musicians play.
I was impressed by how Vadim Gluzman moved his fingers so quickly. My mum thought the ‘double plucking’ was amazing and she liked the graceful movements of the pianist. My sister had fun listening to the music (and clapping after each piece) sitting on my mum’s lap and next to Carolina and her mum. And my dad enjoyed the acoustics of the place.
After the performance, we all went to see the artists and had our photo taken with them. The photo will be a nice way for my family to remember our first time at the Wigmore Hall.
Scipio Zamparo, age 7

The Bridgetower Sonata
Before going to the concert at the Wigmore Hall I listened to the Kreutzer Sonata at home and in my music class. Sometimes at the beginning of my violin practise my dad played the CD and we also listened to it in the car. My dad also told me the story of George Bridgetower and how Beethoven wrote the Kreutzer Sonata for him. George was a violinist who travelled to Germany and met Beethoven. They became friends and when Beethoven wrote the sonata for Bridgetower they planned to play it together in a concert but Beethoven finished the music so late that George didn’t even see the music before the concert. He had to read the music over Beethoven’s shoulder who was playing the piano. George played so well that in the middle of the music Beethoven jumped up from the piano and gave George a hug before they carried on playing. I think the people at the concert must have laughed. Some time after the concert George said something that upset Beethoven and Beethoven said he wasn’t going to call it the Bridgetower Sonata any more so he called it the Kreutzer Sonata instead. Kreutzer was a violinist who never even performed the Kreutzer Sonata because he said it was too difficult so it really should be called the Bridgetower Sonata. I was also interested in this story because George’s mum was Polish and his Dad was West Indian and I am also mixed race.
I enjoyed the concert very much and my favourite part of the sonata was the first movement. It starts in major but sounds more sad than happy. It is slow at the beginning but then becomes fast and full of energy and keeps changing between major and minor. I brought the sheet music of the Kreutzer Sonata to the concert and I followed the violin part but there were many notes and it moved very fast.
After the concert we went to meet the people that played the music. I asked the violinist Vadim Gluzman and the pianist Angela Joffe to sign my Kreutzer Sonata sheet music but they said that they don’t like to sign the sheet music so Vadim signed my ticket but Angela signed the piano score.
After leaving the Wigmore Hall, my dad took me to visit an old friend of Beethoven. It was raining and we drove to an old cemetery in Kensal Green. A very nice man called Jo came to meet us and he knew my name. He took us to an old building where he unlocked a door. Behind the door were some stairs into some underground tunnels called a catacomb where he took us to a stone in the wall. On the stone was written “GEORGE POLEGREEN BRIDGETOWER ESQre DIED 29TH FEB 1860 AGED 78 YEARS”.
Through listening to the Kreutzer Sonata and visiting George’s tomb I now feel that Beethoven and Bridgetower are my friends as well. Very old friends!
Miles Camilleri, age 7

I went with my music teacher Agnes and our BBCM school to a concert at the Wigmore Hall on the 27th of Feb. 2011. The musicians were Vadim Gluzman playing the violin and his wife Angela Yoffe who played the Piano. We listened to the music again at home when we were writing up this review.
Jean-Marie Le Clair
Violin Sonata in D Op. 9 No.3
I liked this first sonata. It reminded me of the music used in the Czech cartoon 'Krtek’ (The Little Mole). The melody is happy.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No.9 in A Op. 47 "Kreutzer
The 1st movement was very strong in emotions and a bit like a car chase and this went on a long time. I liked the 2nd movement more as this was quite and happier. I liked when the violinist plucked the violin like little quips. In the 3rd movement it sounds like the piano and the violin are mirroring each other some of the time and more in agreement.
Maurice Ravel
Kaddisch from Deux melodies hebraiques
I liked this although it did felt very sad.
Maurice Ravel
Tzigane
I liked this much better when I listened to it at home. When I was at the concert listening to this piece, I was finding the concert was a bit too long and I thought the bowing and going in and out the door was a very silly thing to do.
Aaron Esler, age 8

[Aaron’s mother, Philomena Nalty, adds: clapping and leaving the room and re-entry is a formal device that allows the audience to express their appreciation (or otherwise). An Indian friend of mine who was a master of the Veena said it allowed the audience who were sitting still in their seats an opportunity to express all the felt emotion that the music has aroused in them.]

I enjoyed the concert a lot, because my two favourite instruments played, the violin and the piano. I learn to play the violin, so it was interesting to hear a professional musician play it beautifully.
I believe that both musicians enjoyed playing the music, as they were smiling at the audience as they played.
I recognised the Beethoven piece, because we listened to it a few time during our music lessons. My favourite piece was the last one. In this the violinist patted the violin with the bow in some places, giving a pom-pom-pom-like sound. I asked my violin teacher to show this to me, but it did not sound the same.
It was nice to meet the musicians after the concert. They were very friendly to talk to.
We took a group picture at the end.
Abigail Aradi-Posylkin, age 8

On Sunday 27th February 2011 the Bela Bartok Centre for Musicianship had an outing at the Wigmore hall to watch a pianist and violinist play the Kreutzer sonata. It was amazing.
My favourite part
My favourite part of the outing was meeting the artists. This was my favourite part because we were able to ask them many different questions, as well as getting their autographs.
What I liked about the piece
What I especially liked about the piece is that it went at a range of different speeds; creating different moods. I thought that overall the piece was outstanding and I would like to hear it again.
Conclusion
I think the trip to the Wigmore Hall was a great success and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Joshua Leonce-Weekes, age 10

On Sunday 27th March the BBCM went on an outing to the Wigmore Hall to see a concert by Vadim Gluzman on the violin and his wife Angela Yoffe on the piano. They live in Israel but Vadim was born in Ukraine and Angela was born in Latvia. Vadim played a 1690 ex-Leopold Auer Stradivarius, a very valuable violin on loan to him from the Stradivari Society of Chicago. It made a beautiful sound in the hands of Vadim.
It was the first time they had played at the Wigmore Hall which was built in 1901 by the German piano firm Bechstein next to its showrooms on Wigmore Street. The Hall was intended to be both grandly impressive but intimate enough for recitals - it is still very impressive and not too big.
They played four pieces of music. They first played two sonatas, one by Leclair (Violin Sonata in D Op. 9 No. 3) and one by Beethoven (Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Op. 47 ‘Kreutzer’). They then played two pieces by Ravel. Apart from the first piece of music by Ravel the others were all very lively pieces which were beautifully played by Vadim. My favourite was the last piece, Tzigane by Ravel where there was some amazing finger playing by Vadim. The first Ravel piece was called Kaddisch from Deux melodies hebraiques. It is a very slow piece and is music to commemorate the Jewish prayer for the dead. It was very sad.
After the four pieces Vadim and Angela came back and did an encore.
After the concert we went backstage to meet Vadim and Angela. They were very friendly and answered questions. Someone asked him how much he practised and he answered that he practises every day for a long time because when he goes on stage he wants to be extra sure that everything is going to be right. If he didn't then he would go on stage being nervous and worried.
It was a very nice and enjoyable way to spend a Sunday morning!
Hollie Gold, age 12

On the 27th February 2011 the BBCM attended a morning concert at the Wigmore Hall to see Vadim Gluzman and Angela Joffe play pieces for violin and piano by Leclaire, Beethoven and Ravel.
It was only as I was sitting watching the performance that I remembered the last time I was in the Wigmore Hall, at the age of seven, watching a pianist my mother had taken me to see. I remember very clearly being entranced by the pianist's hands as they skipped over the keys. This time, at the age of thirty, watching Yoffe's arms dance around her body was even more enthralling. The grace, ease and enjoyment with which she played these complicated pieces were truly inspiring. I thought the dynamic between the pair was very moving, especially during the first movement of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata - which hit the audience like a storm - and the final Tzigane by Ravel, a strange and exuberant piece of music that grabbed the attention of the younger members of the BBCM with passages of piccicato violin and glissando piano. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable Sunday morning.
Laura Huston, adult class

Vadim Gluzman moved in sympathy with the music. His wife and partner on the piano, Angela Yoffe, looked up at him regularly, smiling.
They played: Leclair – Violin Sonata in D Op. 9 No. 3, Beethoven – Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Op. 47 ‘Kreutzer’, Ravel – Kaddisch from Deux mélodies hébraïques, Tzigane.
It was fitting that the Kaddisch came towards the end of the performance, as it can do in synagogue services.
After the performance we went backstage. Answering one of the BBCM children’s questions on how much practice he did, Gluzman said in effect that he needed to practice a lot to keep up the many pieces in his repertoire. He said that his daughter learns violin, too. There was applause for both the performers and for Agnes for organising the visit.
Sam Ellison, adult class

Below follows an article above Bridgetower from the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians:
Bridgetower [Bridgtower], George (Augustus) Polgreen
(b Bia?a, Poland, 11 Oct 1778; d Peckham, London, 29 Feb 1860). English violinist. The son of a West Indian father and a European mother, he may have lived at Eszterháza during the 1780s and studied with Haydn. He made his début as a violinist at the Concert Spirituel in Paris at the age of ten (11 April 1789). Father and son then moved to England, where the young prodigy was marketed as the ‘son of the African Prince’. He appeared at court in Windsor, and at concerts in Bath and Bristol, before making his London début at the Drury Lane Theatre oratorio on 19 February 1790. His concerto performances here attracted the notice of the Prince of Wales (later King George IV), who took him under his patronage and had him taught the violin by Barthélemon and composition by Attwood. During the next decade he played at many prestigious London concerts, appearing alongside Haydn at Salomon's series and elsewhere; his repertory was based on the concertos of Giornovichi and Viotti, though he is also known to have played the unaccompanied sonatas of Bach. From 1795 to 1809 he was first violinist in the Prince of Wales's private orchestra. Bridgetower had clearly transcended his childhood celebrity to become a respected member of London's musical community, even if his career as a soloist did not fulfil all its early promise.
In 1802 he obtained permission to visit his mother in Dresden; there he gave two concerts (24 July 1802 and 18 March 1803) that were received so enthusiastically that he was given letters of introduction to the highest aristocratic circles in Vienna. It was through Prince Lichnowsky that Bridgetower met Beethoven in the spring of 1803 and that their famous concert (in the Augarten, on 24 May) was financed. Earlier that year Beethoven had begun sketching two movements for violin and piano; and when the concert with Bridgetower was arranged, he quickly finished them and added a previously composed finale (originally intended as the last movement of the Sonata op.30 no.1) to make up a three-movement sonata in A. There was not enough time to have the violin part of the second movement copied before the performance, and Bridgetower was obliged to read it from Beethoven's manuscript; nevertheless the work was a brilliant success, the audience unanimously calling for an encore of the second movement.
There is no question that Beethoven, who spoke highly of Bridgetower both as a soloist and as a quartet player, intended to dedicate this sonata to the young violinist; on a rough composing score of the work he entered the humorous inscription: ‘Sonata mulattica composta per il mulatto Brischdauer, gran pazzo e compositore mulattico’. But the two men later fell out of favour with one another, allegedly after a quarrel over a girl, and Beethoven subsequently dedicated the sonata (published in 1805 as op.47) to the eminent French violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer.
After this Bridgetower returned to England for a number of years, taking the degree of MusB at Cambridge in 1811 and playing with the Philharmonic Society during its first season. He then went abroad, living in Rome and Paris for many years, and is known to have visited England once (in 1843) before returning to spend his last years there.
George Grove/Simon McVeigh

Below see Francesca’s review – our 7th review from the top – in the original: