Káin és Ábel

It has been a long time since we thought of Cécile McLorin Salvant as merely the promising winner of the 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. Her expressive voice capable of conveying profound emotions and refined sentiments, her virtuoso improvisation, and her brave, experimental combinations of styles have now come to represent a point of reference to a new generation.

Two masterpieces of late 19th-century French sacred music make up the programme of this concert-hall celebration: Gabriel Fauré’s exquisitely beautiful Requiem and the Clovis Mass by the elderly Charles Gounod. Between the movements of the latter work, the audience will also become acquainted with four further gems from the Gallican tradition of church music, with one composition each by Alexandre Guilmant, Louis Aubert, Camille Saint-Saëns and Théodore Dubois.

Attentive readers of Péter Nádas find themselves seeing both the world and themselves differently than they did before – and there is no greater impact any work of art or body of works can achieve.