What happened in our 2024-25 season

As Director of the Paris Conservatoire where his nickname was The Archangel, Fauré was ultimately responsible for the pre-eminence of French music in the 20th century. It will be 100 years since his death in November 2024.

This recital marks the centenary of Fauré’s death with a breathtaking musical love story. Drawing on Fauré’s letters to his fiancée, Marianne Viardot, and on Turgenev’s novella The Song of Triumphant Love, it has rarely been told before. Words and music in alternation build the narrative together, while the concert spotlights Fenella in some of the most thrilling French virtuoso violin works of the fin-de-siècle era.

Jessica Duchen (narrator) contributes to the i, The Sunday Times, the Evening Standard, BBC Music Magazine and the JC, among others, and was classical music correspondent for The Independent from 2004 to 2016.

Fenella Humphreys (violin), winner of the 2023 BBC Music Magazine Premiere Recording Award, has attracted critical admiration and audience acclaim with the grace and intensity of her remarkable performances.

Described by Le Monde as "possessing the genius one finds in those who know how to forget themselves", since winning first prize at the Maria Canals Piano Competition in Barcelona, British pianist Viv McLean has performed in all the major venues in the UK as well as throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA.