Orchestre de chambre de Paris

Haydn Symphony No. 85 Hob.I:85 "The Queen " 
Lavandier Poèmes Spirit on a text by Frédéric Boyer
Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night's Dream, Overture 
Berlioz Les Nuits d’été Op. 7

Approximate running time
1st part: 40mn - Intermission: 20mn - 2nd part: 45mn

This concert celebrating Berlioz’s birthday invites us to bask in two summers. Les Nuits d’été, Berlioz’s setting of Théophile Gautier’s poems, was composed in 1841 and tells of strawberries, blackbirds and undying promises, before giving way to the cruelties of absence and mourning symbolised by the dazzling Le Spectre de la rose. Arthur Lavandier and Frédéric Boyer offer us their own sensitive and contemporary response to their predecessors. Lavandier, a highly accomplished composer in his thirties, has already penned a variation on Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Boyer, a novelist, poet, and translator of Virgil and Shakespeare, recently published Là où le cœur attend [Where the Heart Waits], an essay on loss and hope. Providing yet more warmth and light, one of the finest French voices of the moment, the radiant Stéphanie d’Oustrac, performs these two summer cycles.

Production Orchestre de chambre de Paris