Myra Hess Festival

Join pianist Clare Hammond for a captivating concert featuring music by French composers writing from 1897 to 1916, with Ravel’s 'Miroirs' as the centrepiece. Ravel’s music is often associated with impressionism yet, if an artistic correspondence is to be found, pointillism seems more pertinent. Like Georges Seurat, Ravel combined heightened sensibility with an almost mechanical precision and logic. He constructs textures systematically from small, repeated units that, in combination, produce landscapes of striking breadth and luminosity. The music of Gabriel Fauré and trail-blazing composer Mél Bonis forms a luxuriant contrast, with its enigmatic shifts from shadow to light. 'Autrefois', by Cécile Chaminade, is a touching tribute to music of the past.

Programme

Mél Bonis - Selection from 'Femmes de légendes' (1898, 9’) i. Phoebe ii. Desdémona iii. Mélisande

Gabriel Fauré - 'Nocturnes' Nos. 12 and 8 (1916, 1902, 9’)

Maurice Ravel - 'Miroirs' (1905, 25’) i. Noctuelles ii. Oiseaux tristes iii. Une barque sur l’océan iv. Alborada del gracioso v. La vallée des cloches

Cécile Chaminade - 'Autrefois' (1897, 4’20)

Maurice Ravel - 'Sonatine' (1905, 10’)

Acclaimed as a “pianist of extraordinary gifts” (Gramophone) and “immense power” (The Times), Clare Hammond is recognised for her imaginative playing, visionary programming, and communicative performance style. She won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award in 2016.

Last year saw her debuts at the BBC Proms, Konzerthaus Berlin, and Salle Bourgie in Montreal, and return visits to the Wigmore Hall, London’s National Gallery, and Raritäten der Klaviermusik in Husum. Clare recorded a disc of concertos by Britten, Tippett and Walton with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and gave the second ever performance of the recently revived Fantasia by Andrzej Panufnik more than sixty years after its premiere, with the Filharmonia Poznańska. In 2025, Clare makes her debut at the Royal Albert Hall, performing Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with the Philharmonia, and premieres new concertos by Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade and George Stevenson with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Britten Sinfonia.

Clare has recorded six discs for BIS, most recently releasing an album of Etudes by visionary French composer Hélène de Montgeroult, launched in a special concert at London’s National Gallery and featured extensively on BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week and Essential Classics. The disc was selected as Editor’s Choice in Gramophone. Her disc of etudes by Unsuk Chin, Nikolai Kapustin, Sergei Lyapunov and Karol Szymanowski won her an Opus d’Or from Opus HD magazine and 5 diapasons from Diapason, while 'Youth', an album of music written for Clare by Edmund Finnis, won an Edison Klassiek Award and Presto Classical's 'EP of the Year' Award in 2024.