All BBC Proms Chamber Concerts take place at Cadogan Hall.
Bizet
Chanson d’avril 3’
Franck
Nocturne 4’
Chabrier
Les cigales 4’
Bachelet
Chère nuit 5’
Duparc
Au pays où se fait la guerre 5’
Ravel
Histoires naturelles – Le paon 5’
Caplet
Le corbeau et le renard 4’
Roussel
Réponse d’une épouse sage 3’
Debussy
Fêtes galantes – Colloque sentimental 4’
Honegger
Trois chansons de la petite sirène 3’
Rosenthal
Chansons du monsieur Bleu – La souris d’Angleterre 3’
Poulenc
La dame de Monte-Carlo 7’
Susan Graham mezzo-soprano
Malcolm Martineau piano
There will be no interval.
The sinuous and seductive world of French song is a speciality of the superlative American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham (see also Prom 19) and her duo partner Malcolm Martineau, who likens the delights on offer to a menu gourmand. And indeed there is a wide variety of musical dishes here, scanning a century of mélodies françaises and taking in the themes of night and nature, love and childhood, and culminating in Poulenc’s bittersweet melodrama of defiance and regret.