GRISEY: QUATRE CHANTS

A rare opportunity awaits to experience French composer Gérard Grisey's stunningly dark and disorienting Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil, presented by the London Sinfonietta. This masterpiece offers a journey through intricate collisions of fragmented melody and harmony.  

Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil, which roughly translates to Four Songs for Crossing the Threshold, explores the boundary between life and death – a significance that is elevated by Grisey's passing soon after its completion, preventing his attendance at the world premiere of the piece by the London Sinfonietta and George Benjamin in 1999. 

That a man in the prime of life feels an imperative to write his own elegy without realizing it,  Fiona Maddocks wrote in The Guardian, raised questions yet more disturbing than the potent work itself.

As a pioneering figure in the spectral music movement – music intended to imitate the spectral qualities of a sound – Grisey uniquely explores sonic transformations and transfigurations, calling on microtones and rapid gong acrobatics to conjure these profound and disruptive musical worlds. 

Quatre Chants stands as one of the most significant concert works of the late 20th century, written for soprano and ensemble to create a meditation on death divided into four sections: the death of an angel, civilization, the voice, and humanity. Perhaps now, more than ever, it is a piece for our times. 

The effect of the music must have been staggering: After two decades, most of Grisey’s circle still finds the performance impossible to talk about. The New York Times

Programme includes: 
Gérard Grisey  Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil 

Jack Sheen  conductor
Nina Guo  soprano
London Sinfonietta

This event is produced by the London Sinfonietta. The work of the London Sinfonietta is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Grisey: Quatre Chants is kindly supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation and the John Ellerman Foundation. 
Grisey: Quatre Chants is performed with the friendly support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.