Friday Night in Paris - Sheffield Chamber Music Festival 2024

FAURÉ Piano Quintet No.1 (31’)
RAVEL Chansons Madécasses (13’)
POULENC Sextet (18’)
FAURÉ La Bonne Chanson (33′)

Musical national treasure Roderick Williams, soloist at King Charles III’s Coronation and Singer-in-Residence with Music in the Round, returns to the Crucible Playhouse with Ensemble 360 for a magical tour through the City of Light.

Fauré’s first Piano Quintet was a labour of love that he nurtured over many years, and the song cycles and works for violin he wrote alongside it echo through this exquisitely constructed piece.

Poulenc’s kaleidoscopic sextet encompasses jazz, ragtime, pastiche of Mozart and a tribute to Ravel, whose ‘Madagascan’ songs they follow, in this programme luxuriating in the many sounds of fin de siècle Paris.

Culminating in Fauré’s intricate song-cycle, crafted from the poems of Paul Verlaine, this concert reunites Ensemble 360, with Music in the Round’s singer-in-residence Roderick Williams for the first time since 2017.

Note from Guest Curator, Steven Isserlis

“What a treat it will be to hear Roderick Williams in Fauré’s seductive ‘La Bonne Chanson’ (the first time he’s ever sung it, I understand!). Before that Ravel takes us away from Paris on a magic carpet for his bittersweet Chansons Madécasses. Poulenc is perhaps the ultimate Parisian composer, and so manages to make an appearance here – despite his disgraceful sin of (apparently) not appreciating Fauré’s music. Well – apart from that, he’s a wonderful composer…”