Sheffield Chamber Music Festival: Sheffield

Friday Night in Paris
Roderick Williams and Ensemble 360

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.

Gabriel Fauré: Piano Quintet no. 1 in D minor, op. 89
Maurice Ravel: Chansons madécasses
Interval
Francis Poulenc: Sextet for Wind Quintet and Piano in C major
Gabriel Fauré: La Bonne Chanson for Baritone, String Quintet and Piano