Last Friday Cherubim clarinetist Ivan Rogachev gave a dazzling account of the Poulenc Sonata with his accompanist Ekaterina Grabova at a Savile Club Aperitif Concert. The duo, who are both Russian postgraduate students at the Royal Academy of Music, achieved a miraculous balance in this demanding and virtuoso work, capturing every nuance of the dynamics and darting effortlessly from the bottom to top of their ranges.https://youtu.be/zJLYz1soGrQ
By contrast, when they were joined by cellist Theo Bently Curtin in the Brahms Trio Opus 114 they achieved a deep and mellow richness for which the spacious acoustics of the Savile Ballroom created the perfect environment. The phrasing and interplay between the instruments was so well judged that the timbres complemented each other, and made an admirable situation for the Cherubim clarinet to glow under Rogachev’s able fingers https://youtu.be/_iu426u5WWw
