Alfia Nakipbekova, cello
Jakob Fichert, piano

Hans Gál, born just outside Vienna in 1890, was one of Austria’s most successful composers, especially of opera, when first the Nazi accession to power in 1933 and then the Anschluss drove him into exile – to Edinburgh, where he became one of the city’s best-loved and most highly respected musicians and helped found the Festival. Gál’s lyrical style had fallen out of fashion by the end of his long life, but his Suite and Sonata for solo cello, written in 1982, just five years before his death in 1987, show that even in advanced age his fondness for melody was undimmed. Alfia Nakipbekova and Jakob Fichert will play music from their forthcoming Toccata Classics CD of the two late works for solo cello and the Sonata for cello and piano (1954). Before that they will be joined in discussion by Eva Fox-Gál, the composer’s daughter, and Martin Anderson of Toccata Classics who is also a writer on music.