Monday at Last with piano

In Monday at Last, violinist Cecilia Zilliacus and cellist Kati Raitinen invite guest artists to perform both newer and older music. This time, the guests are Finnish pianist Olli Mustonen and violist Vicki Powell, the leader of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra's viola section.

In addition to his career as a pianist, Mustonen is also a conductor and composer, and here he plays the piano part in his own sonatas for violin and cello. We also hear music by a very intriguing figure, Marcelle de Manziarly (1899–1989). She left her homeland of Ukraine to study in Paris under Nadia Boulanger, but later moved to the USA where she worked as both a pianist, conductor, and composer.

To conclude this Monday evening, we hear Saint-Saëns's Piano Quartet No. 2 in B-flat major – a work that has been called a neglected masterpiece, but which now belongs to the central repertoire for piano quartet.