Paris Reflected, Southwark Cathedral

Paris at the turn of the twentieth century played host to a great variety of musical innovations, many of which rendered around the shimmering sounds of impressionism. This April, to close their 2015-16 season, the City of London Sinfonia in Southwark Cathedral will present a concert that spans the fin de siècle to the aftermath of two world wars, tracing French music over fifty years. Stephen Layton’s Holst Singers will join the Sinfonia to provide vocals, with Layton himself conducting.
The evening opens with the greatest French composer of his time. Debussy’s Le Petite Suite, originally written for two pianos but orchestrated by his friend Henri Büsser, is a relatively simple work, with a dreamily sensuous flow; it first two movements set poems by the symboliste Paul Verlaine. It is followed by Faure’s Pavane, a sunken ballroom dance that glides by on effortless orchestration. British composer Charlotte Bray (At the Speed of Stillness) then provides a new arrangment of Bach, before the Sinfonia moves to the interwar era for Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin, a light-hearted evocation of baroque forms that ranks among the composer’s most playful works.

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Finally, the concert and the season come to a close with Durufle’s Requiem, a meditative classic that melds the innovations of impressionism with the grace of Gregorian plainchant. Mezzo Helen Charlston and baritone Roderick Williams will be the soloists. It is difficult to think of a more enchanting London setting for this uniquely soaring piece.