A recital by Y-Squared at St Botolph’s Church, Colchester on Saturday 22nd August 2015. This was Yasmin’s second visit to St Botolph’s Church. She first played there in 2008 when she performed Grieg’s piano concerto. Although a public concert, this was also part of a combined grand birthday bash for her Dad and Grandmother.

The Grand Tango for cello and piano contains daring harmonies, spiky dissonance, pulsing rhythm and syncopation, as well as glissandi (slides up and down the fingerboard), strikes to the instrument, and wide mood swings. It is a wonderful rhapsody, requiring a high degree of virtuosity by the players.

Although played without pause, the work has three sections. The first is rhythmically strident, alternating moods of violence and tenderness. The second is a melancholy song of simple texture.

The third is a return to the rhythmic insistence of the first, with a delightfully bluesy part for the piano, building in tempo and intensity to a grand climax.

Collaborations