‘How do you choose the music you play?’
In Q&A sessions that’s right up there with ‘How many hours do you practise?’ and ‘Who’s your favourite composer?’
Like most things in music, there isn’t a simple answer.
Concertos and orchestral concerts
Concertos are fairly straightforward – either an orchestra comes to you wanting something specific (‘Do you play x concerto?’), or they want to work with you and are happy to programme the rest of the concert around your concerto ideas. Or you’ve found something you really want to play and go to an orchestra or conductor to try and convince them they really ought to let you play it.
But when it comes to chamber music or unaccompanied programmes you’re in a gentle balance between the concert organiser’s likes and needs and your own ideas. Sometimes you’re given free reign, other times not so much. And every time it’s a slightly different dance.
Chamber music programmes
When I’m putting together a programme from scratch, I like to find an architecture over the complete concert: a thread that holds the musical choices together, or a story you’re telling. That could be down to relationships between composers, musical links, different reactions to a related theme – the list is endless. But those ideas often lead me to discover music or composers I hadn’t previously encountered.
A few months ago, when thinking about a programme for a concert at London’s Wigmore Hall this month, I was invited to look at the hall’s archives. It was incredible to see the different ways people programmed concerts 100 years ago, and I was amazed by the sheer amount of new music being performed. There were two works, by Dorothy Howell and Arthur Honegger that had received premieres at the hall in 1925 that particularly interested me.
I went on a hunt, found the music and discovered two stunningly rich, characterful works that I knew I had to play. A little more digging and I found that two pieces I’ve always loved performing by Prokofiev and Stravinsky were also written in 1925. With the balance of a brilliant sonata by a young Mendelssohn published in 1825, and our own premieres of commissions by Sally Beamish and Adrian Sutton, the programme fell into place.
There was a time when you’d regularly see programmes for violin/piano duo concerts that consisted of three sonatas – often Mozart, Beethoven, Franck. Usually, music written by men who were long since dead. But gradually I think people have become more interested in seeking out music that is played less often, or has completely disappeared from the concert platform. I think most audiences are also more willing to try something new.
New or familiar repertoire... a balance
We’re so lucky as violinists that there is just so much repertoire to choose from. I’m endlessly discovering music that is completely new to me, and I love introducing people to good music they’ve probably never heard before. It’s important of course to balance that with things you know an audience will be familiar and comfortable with. Because at the end of the day there’s no point introducing people to something new if nobody’s actually going to book tickets because the programme is too out there.
Collaborating with concert promoters and festival directors
Maybe a year or so before the beginning of each new concert season we will put together a few programme suggestions – sometimes I’ll come up with a few ideas to run by the musicians I’m working with, sometimes we’ll work together on possibilities. These programmes then get sent around concert promoters. Some won’t be interested, some may bite, booking a programme as it stands. Others may come back with their own ideas, usually a specific work they would like included. So, then you start reimagining how to make your ideas work with their additions.
Festival directors will also often come with their own requests, or a theme they have for that year’s performances. Those conversations can be brilliant, leading you to music and ways of building a programme that you would never have thought of on your own.
Honouring anniversaries
I also like checking out which composer anniversaries are coming up. Last year we were lucky to have Fauré’s anniversary, and I loved being involved in a couple of different programmes that we performed a lot over the year, placing his music alongside his students, teachers and contemporaries. This year it’s been the anniversary of Ravel, Fauré’s student, and it’s been great immersing myself in this incredible world of colours and sounds.
Programming is something I love. It will never get dull – there is always so much good music to be discovered or commissioned, and there are always new ways of creating a programme. The only problem is that life’s too short to play everything!
Fenella Humphreys and Martin Roscoe perform at the Wigmore Hall on 16 October 2025 in a programme of Prokofiev, Mendelssohn, Honegger, Howell, Stravinsky and premieres by Sally Beamish and Adrian Sutton.