Almost all of our repertoire is arranged for both violin with viola, or violin with cello (apart from some specific chamber music that is written for a particular combination), so it’s really down to the personal choice of each client which instruments they would prefer.

The wedding at Great Fosters was ideal for a string duo and as there were in the region of 90 guests. After the ceremony, we joined everyone on the lawn at the back of the venue for a drinks reception where we performed many pieces from our popular and light repertoire to create an upbeat and celebratory atmosphere.

Overall it was a delightful evening and we look forward to returning to play at Highgate House again in the very near future.

As the couple joined a circle of family and friends we played the whole of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. For the signing of the register I had especially arranged a piece called ‘Doa’ by a contemporary Indonesian singer called Rafli. It was a special touch to the day as it was a piece which meant a lot to both of them and the classical interpretation of it apparently gave it a different feel.

After the ceremony, drinks were served to a selection of classical and popular music which added nicely to the ambiance of this special day.

Although several people had phoned and purchased or reserved tickets in advance, it wasn’t until the doors opened at 7.15pm that we had any idea of who was coming. Luckily plenty of people braved the sudden downpour of rain and by the time we started playing there was a reasonable sized audience.

As usual, we kept the programme very well known with plenty of popular pieces, but included some lesser known works to add interest - all on the theme of ‘Dances’. Some of the pieces were a Gavotte by Bach, Boccherini’s Minuet, Monti’s Czardas, the Waltz from Swan Lake, Bolero by Ravel and Faure’s Pavane - all of which are based on the tradition of dance. Once we started thinking about pieces that could fall into that category, we quickly realised that there is an enormous amount of classical music which derives inspiration from traditional dances or was written to accompany dance.

Haddenham Church is a beautiful building with a lovely acoustic and it was a real pleasure to play there - we are already looking forward to performing there again with a Christmas concert on Friday the 17th of December.

Here is a clip of Monti’s Czardas from the concert. The musicians are myself and Louise Bevan on violins, Adrian Smith on Viola and Julia Graham on Cello.

The piece contains many ‘fifths’ which I know some of my violin students can find challenging, especially when it comes to tuning. As a fifth is such a ‘pure’ interval on a stringed instrument, any little imperfections in a perfect fifth show up very easily and therefore it is a real skill to play them consistently in tune - yet there are many players who manage this easily. On the other hand, I have come across lots of players who struggle to play fifths in tune and unbelievably a teacher from one of the main London music colleges advocated contorting the hand into any position in order to force the notes in tune. This is totally wrong and a recipe for ‘gripping’ the violin, injury and of course poor tone. The old adage of ‘whatever feels natural ends up sounding good’ would apply here and it all has to do with the suppleness of the whole of the left hand including the base joints. Instead of the fingers pressing the strings in a vertical manner with a “dead” touch, they swing into the notes lightly, in a horizontal direction, developing a sense of brushing the strings (rather as many guitarists approach chords) the fifths will become perfectly in tune. It’s all about constant motion and being dynamically flexible, rather than static and tense. As soon as the left hand stops this constant motion, the tuning can be lost and the flow of the music also stops.

Many violinists in particular can sound sharp when playing on the E string - this is all to do with pressing the string down vertically rather than sweeping towards the notes and allowing the sound to ring out. There is a myth that the string should touch the finger board of the instrument but by approaching the E string slightly on the left hand side, it’s possible to create the most beautiful and well projected sound without the string significantly lowering in any way.

As the theme of this concert is ‘Invitation to the Dance’, we’ve based the programme on pieces of music that are inspired by dance such as Waltzes, Minuet’s, Gavotte’s, Pavane’s, Tango’s, Jigs, Reels and Airs - so there will be a mixture of lively and more contemplative tempo’s and hopefully something that everyone can enjoy.

As a non dancer myself (two feet but sadly both of them left!), I’ll also have to read up a bit on all these different dances and the history and traditions involved so that we can talk to the audience about each piece a little before we play it.

Although when we play in churches where we’re already known we can usually be assured of a good audience (if not a sell out), part of promoting a concert ourselves in a new village is about getting the publicity out there so that people are interested in coming along. As well as the usual online publicity through sites such as the excellent Concert Diary or Bachtrack, my feet have had quite a workout this week pounding the streets of Haddenham posting concert flyer’s through peoples doors. We’ve contacted the local music appreciation group and the U3A who have kindly advertised our recital on their website, and of course we’ve notified everyone on our own mailing list.

To be honest, we have at this stage no idea whether the church will be completely full or whether we’ll be performing to a much more intimate gathering the first time - and it probably won’t be until the evening itself that we’ll know, as many people may wish to just turn up on the night. Tickets are £10 (full) or £8 (concessions) and will be available on the door, with doors opening at 7.15pm and the concert starting at 7.30pm, we’ll be serving cold drinks during the interval as hopefully it’ll be a glorious summer’s evening.

As Tony Woollard (who was originally going to be playing cello with us) is off performing with the Irish Chamber Orchestra for the next few months, we are delighted that another outstanding cellist and regular quartet member Julia Graham will be joining us for the concert, so the players will be

Violins - Vaughan Jones and Louise Bevan

Viola - Adrian Smith

Cello - Julia Graham