Lionel Tertis (1876-1975), a great genius of the viola, is little known to today’s public. Timothy Ridout pays tribute to this key figure in his instrument’s history with a flamboyant programme featuring music by Tertis’s friends, teachers and students alongside some of his own original works and transcriptions. A marvellous musical journey, rich in discoveries.

The Doric String Quartet is firmly established as one of the leading quartets of its generation, receiving enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics around the globe. Following their acclaimed recordings of Mendelssohn’s string quartets, here the quartet is joined by leading violist Timothy Ridout for an album of Mendelssohn’s two string quintets. These were written at the beginning and end of his short but remarkable compositional life. Mendelssohn composed No. 1 in 1826, shortly before the Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, when he was just seventeen. No. 2 was written in 1845, when he was thirty-six, a year before the première of Elijah and just two years before his death.

Following a highly successful series of concerts in the summer of 2022, Francesca Dego, Timothy Ridout, Laura van der Heijden, and Federico Colli headed into the studio to record Mozart’s Piano Quartets. Whilst he may not have been the first composer to add a viola to the popular piano trio, Mozart was certainly the first to do so with such outstanding success. In his piano quartets, the strings become an equal partner to the piano, rather than mere accompaniment – much as in his piano concertos.

Timothy Ridout gives us the opportunity to discover the splendid viola version of Elgar’s famous Cello Concerto – an arrangement approved by the composer, who conducted its premiere in 1930. In addition to this deeply moving work, he gives us a powerful, poetic reading of Bloch’s all too rarely performed Suite for Viola and Orchestra, in which the Swiss composer indulged his fascination with the Orient.

Continuing Warner Classics’ multiple-award-winning Berlioz cycle (Les Troyens, La Damnation de Faust) with conductor John Nelson and the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg. Berlioz’s orchestral song cycle on a libretto by Théophile Gautier, Les Nuits d’été, is sung by superstar (bari)tenor Michael Spyres. This is the first ever recording of the original 1856 version by one single voice – Michael Spyres sings with a bass, tenor and baritone voice. Featuring the young British viola player Timothy Ridout in Berlioz’s Harold en  Italie.

French Works for Flute is the Chandos début of Adam Walker, ably accompanied by James Baillieu. The pair is joined by the violist Timothy Ridout in Duruflé’s Prélude, récitatif et variations.