York Bowen Romance in A for Viola and Piano
Frank Bridge 2 pieces for Viola and Piano
Frank Bridge Rosemary for Piano
Brahms Viola Sonata in Eflat major op. 120 No. 2

Dorothea Vogel (Viola) was born in Switzerland and studied with Rudolf Weber in Winterthur.
 
Whilst playing principal viola in the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra she developed a taste for travel and received scholarships to study with Paul Coletti at the Peabody Institute, USA, and then with David Takeno and Micaela Comberti (baroque viola) at the Guildhall School in London, where she graduated with the coveted Concert Recital Diploma.

Chamber music has always been a big part in Dorothea’s life. As a sixteen year old she founded her first string quartet. When she finally settled in England, she left that quartet and worked as a freelance violist in most of the London orchestras (LSO, Philharmonia, LPO, RPO, BBC), whilst also having a busy career as the principal violist in Kings Consort and other baroque ensembles; one of the highlights being an appearance as the soloist in Vivaldi’s Concerti for Viola d’Amore at Wigmore Hall.

She then joined the Allegri Quartet, and spent the next 20 years playing concerts all over the country and abroad until 2021.

In the last few years she has increased her focus on gut strings; and as the violist of the Narratio Quartet in Holland she is performing and recording all the Beethoven Quartets. Her Primrose Piano Quartet recorded the Brahms Piano Quartets using 3 different pianos of the period in Vienna after conducting research on Historically Informed Performance in a seminar at the Birmingham Conservatoire, and she has recently recorded the two viola sonatas and the G major violin sonata (arranged for Viola) by Brahms on Meridian, using a 1890 Bösendorfer piano and period set-up.

Dorothea is passionate about educating the next generation, and teaches at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.




John Thwaites is best known for his collaborative work with strings . He has worked over decades with cellists Alexander Baillie and Johannes Goritzki, and appeared with Pierre Doumenge, Louise Hopkins, Natalie Clein, Alexander Ivashkin, David Cohen, Oleg Kogan, Li Wei and others, and with the Martinu, Maggini, Dante, Schidlof, Emperor and Aurea String Quartets. Theatrical collaborations have included work with Simon Callow, Tony Britton and Tim Piggott-Smith.
John performs regularly in the major festivals across Europe, broadcasts for radio, and has issued a string of critically acclaimed recordings.  His recording of Lyapunov’s Piano Sextet with the Dante Quartet for Dutton Digital was a BBC Music Magazine ‘Recording of the Month’, as was a Double CD of British Twentieth Century Cello Sonatas with Alexander Baillie for SOMM.
Concerto appearances include Grieg at St John’s Smith Square and Tchaikovsky at the Royal College of Music. Whilst Head of Keyboard at Christ’s Hospital, he programmed the complete Chamber Music of Brahms, taking the 17 piano parts – an abiding passion increasingly informed by historic performance study. Baillie/Thwaites have recorded the Brahms Cello Sonatas using period pianos in Vienna.
John’s more recent teaching career includes posts at the Royal  Conservatoire of Scotland and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He is Course Director of the Cadenza International Summer Music School, a piano and strings festival resident at the Purcell School, and Head of Keyboard Studies at Birmingham Conservatoire, where he has directed major Festivals of Ireland, Delius, Bax, Skryabin and Brahms as well as directing a celebrity-studded All Night Gala at Birmingham Town Hall.
Calum MacDonald, BBC Music Magazine Chamber Choice, October 2013
These are passionate, focused, full-blooded readings. Alexander Baillie and John Thwaites invest each work with the power of utter belief, and as a result these are probably the best current versions of the Bridge, Ireland, Rubbra and Delius Sonatas.