The 24

Event details

Hilary Suckling  piano
William Campbell  organ

Robert Hollingworth  conductor

Ravel, arr. Roderick Williams     Adagio from Piano Concerto in G
Jean Francaix    Deux Motets
Debussy, arr. Clytus Gottwald     Three pieces
Saint-Saëns     Two songs
Arthur Honegger     Songs
Vaughan Williams     Three Shakespeare Songs
Germaine Tailleferre     Three pieces
Léo Ferré     Chanson d'automne

The 24 with Hilary Suckling presents a French programme of mostly twentieth-century music – much of it unknown or heard in new clothes. They offer the second only UK performance of Jean Francaix's Deux motets (the last performance was by Nadia Boulanger!) alongside bewitching arrangements of Debussy songs for choir and Madrigal by Saint-Saens. In songs by Arthur Honegger, the short piano works by Germaine Tailleferre and Lili Boulanger, you can almost smell the pastis – and with Poulenc, the lazy cigarette ('je ne veux pas travailler, je veux fumer'). Vaughan Williams’s Three Shakespeare Songs – a firm favourite with audiences – sneaks in due to the composer's connection with Ravel: Roderick Williams's arrangement for piano and voices of the mesmeric slow movement from Ravel's Piano Concerto in G provides the final twist in this inventive programme!