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Step into fin de siècle Paris, where the poet Verlaine, the painter Monet and the composers Fauré and Debussy would meet at regular soirées. From Verlaine, Fauré took nine poems to set as his exquisite cycle La bonne chanson – a serene depiction of the love Fauré was currently experiencing for Debussy’s future wife. Debussy’s own String Quartet was finished while Fauré’s work was still in progress, and proved one of the composer’s first ventures into his new, luxuriant musical world of light, sensuality and fragile beauty. The concert opens with a work by Augusta Holmès, one of the many 19th-century French women composers now being rediscovered. Her intimate song-cycle Les heures contemplates the ‘hours’ of the day.

Broadcast live on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 3

Image: James Atkinson © Ben Durrant