The Qualities of Chamber Music

Peter Fribbins writes about the virtues of chamber music from his perspective as a composer and as the Artistic Director of the London Chamber Music Society

The coming 2015/16 season will be my 14th year directing the London Chamber Music Society’s series of weekly Sunday evening concerts – six of those at Conway Hall before the series moved to Kings Place in 2008. Whilst I sometimes struggle to recall the intricate details of those nearly 400 concert programmes, ranging as they do from duos, piano trios, string quartets, quintets, wind ensembles and chamber orchestras, I am grateful for the unique opportunity this task has given me; to survey, comprehend and absorb the astonishing canon that is classical chamber music. As a composer, the experience has been of incalculable benefit.