Themes & Variations

Cellist Guy Johnston and pianist Tom Poster first met at the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition in 2000, and have been firm friends and frequent collaborators ever since. During their many recitals together, Johnston and Poster have found themselves returning again and again to certain works, associating these pieces with key moments in their lives, or simply deriving great pleasure from the sheer quality of the music. Theme and Variations includes three sets of variations, but also reflects the broader theme of lives intertwining: two musicians going in different directions but regularly resuming their musical partnership. Johnston and Poster are joined for a Schubert song by exceptional tenor James Gilchrist, and, alongside sets of variations by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Martinu, we hear deliciously romantic music by Rachmaninoff and Fauré, and Kiss on Wood by contemporary Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan. To end the programme, Saint-Saëns' Swan glides into view and off into the distance.