Rachael Montesino & Virtuosi Ensemble (LoVE): A Terrible Beauty – English String Music, from 1900 to 1939; Temple Church, EC4Y; Tuesday 1st December 2026, 7:30pm; £16.17 - £48.51
British-New Zealand cellist and conductor Rachael Montesino Young is set to release her new album, The Bearable Lightness of Being – A Tribute to Jacqueline du Pré, this November. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, the album is a deeply personal tribute to the legendary cellist, who has remained a lifelong artistic influence on Rachael. The two musicians share a musical lineage, having both studied with renowned cellist and teacher William Pleeth.
Rachael’s approach to the album is inspired by du Pré’s sincerity and emotional honesty, placing instinct, spontaneity and musical expression at the heart of the recording. She is joined by pianist Sophia Rahman, with the album offering a personal reflection on one of the most influential cellists of the 20th century.
This December, Rachael will bring her newly formed London Virtuosi Ensemble (LoVE) to Temple Church in London on 1 December for A Terrible Beauty – English String Music from 1900 to 1939.
A Terrible Beauty explores the extraordinary flowering of English string music in the first decades of the twentieth century – music of radiant lyricism and haunting emotional depth, written in the shadow of a rapidly changing world.
At its heart lies a profound sense of beauty touched by fragility. Composed between the final years of the Edwardian era and the uncertain decades between two world wars, these works reflect a society poised between nostalgia and modernity, serenity and upheaval. The soaring lines of Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis seem to suspend time itself, while the aching tenderness of Finzi’s Romance and Elgar’s Elegy speaks of loss, remembrance and longing. Frank Bridge’s elegant Valse–Intermezzo captures the glittering surface of a vanished world, and Michael Tippett’s exhilarating Concerto for Double String Orchestra bursts forth with rhythmic vitality, yet beneath its energy lies an undercurrent of tension and unease, hinting at the uncertainties and gathering shadows of a world on the brink of conflict.
From the sweeping grandeur of Elgar’s Introduction & Allegro to the luminous spirituality of Vaughan Williams, this is music of extraordinary richness and emotional power – at once intimate and expansive, deeply English yet universal in its humanity.
A compelling and atmospheric evening of string music, A Terrible Beauty invites audiences into a sound world of warmth, passion and poignancy.
This concert is promoted in association with Pivot Media Venture Partners LLP.
