This collaboration between cellist Kate Bennett Wadsworth and the Consone Quartet grew out of Kate’s practice-led research project on the relationship between the Schumann Cello Concerto and the cellists of his time, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and culminating in a new critical edition for Bärenreiter. Kate’s arrangement of the Cello Concerto for cello and string quartet, based on a suggestion found in Schumann’s correspondence, is paired here with a cello quintet arrangement of Beethoven’s First Cello Sonata, made by Beethoven’s pupil and close confidant, Ferdinand Ries. Recorded here for the first time, in the beautiful acoustic of the Menuhin Hall, the two reworkings bring two very different visions of virtuosity into the same genial social space.

The first period instrument string quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists, the Consone Quartet are fast making a name for themselves with their honest and expressive interpretations. The quartet has been enthusiastically received at London’s major venues, as well as further afield across Europe, in South America and Canada. Consone will return to North America in 2025 to perform both alone and in collaboration with pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout. Festival invitations include Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Dartington, Two Moors, Buxton, MA Festival in Bruges, Heidelberger Streichquartettfest, and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany. Consone were awarded a prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust fellowship in 2022 and are Artists-in-Residence at Paxton House (2023-2025) and at Saxon Shore Early Music Kenardington (2024-2027). Last year they premiered a new work for string sextet by Gavin Bryars, entitled The Bridges of Königsberg, which was broadcast on Radio 3 from St Martin-in-the-Fields in October 2023.

Kate Bennett Wadsworth is a cellist and gambist devoted to historical performance of all periods, with a special research interest in 19th-century performing practice. She has appeared at festivals across Europe and North America with ensembles such as B’Rock, Tafelmusik, Arion, the Gabrieli Consort, and the Academy of Ancient Music, and given lecture-recitals and masterclasses at the Juilliard School, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, the Orpheus Institute, and the Utrecht Early Music Festival. In collaboration with Clive Brown and Neal Peres da Costa, she prepared annotated editions of the Brahms Cello Sonatas and co-authored Performance Practices in Johannes Brahms’ Chamber Music, published by Bärenreiter in 2015, and her recording of the Brahms Cello Sonatas with pianist Yi-heng Yang (Deux-Elles 2018), was praised for its “narrative quality” (Gramophone) and its “ardor and depth” (Early Music America). Kate lives in Norwich, UK, where she directs the dynamic ensemble, Norwich Baroque, while supervising postgraduates in practice-led research at the Guildhall School in London.