The Ensemble Dissonance brings together prominent Slovene chamber musicians who are active in the country’s main orchestras and as teachers and soloists. The ensemble, which has a flexible line-up, specialises in thoughtful juxtapositions of works from the canonical repertoire with more recent music and collaborates regularly with acclaimed soloists from Slovenia and abroad. Appearing with the ensemble on this occasion are violinist Vadim Repin, who established himself on the international scene at a very young age with victories at prestigious competitions and is today the artistic director of the Transsiberian Arts Festival, which he founded, and pianist Peter Laul, an acclaimed soloist and committed chamber musician with an extensive discography who is also active as a teacher and author, with publications including a book on Beethoven’s piano sonatas.

The programme brings together works from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, a period in which chamber music was gradually expanding towards greater expressive and formal complexity. Anton Arensky conceived his Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky as a tribute to the recently deceased composer. The simple theme that opens the work is followed by a stylistically diverse series of transformations. Tchaikovsky himself is represented by a work that reveals his melodic invention and directness of expression. This is followed by a rhapsodic piece by Maurice Ravel featuring a virtuosic violin part in a stylised “gypsy” idiom. The second part of the evening ends with Ernest Chausson’s sumptuous and colourful Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet.