Sinfonietta Rīga and Jean-Guihen Queyras. Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto and Fauré’s Elegy

Delighting audiences from the Paris Philharmonie to Carnegie Hall in New York and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the charming French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras always finds time to play with Sinfonietta Rīga as well. Together with Latvian musicians, Queyras has already worked through scores by the most celebrated Viennese classics and pioneers of the avant-garde era, but for the first time, under Olari Elts, the finely matched partners turn their attention to exploring French Romanticism together.

The variety of this program is reflected in both the refined melodist Gabriel Fauré’s Elegy and the lyrical artistry of his teacher and close friend Camille Saint-Saëns. Both Saint-Saëns’s virtuoso Cello Concerto and his harmonically captivating early symphonies, inspired by the Viennese classics, belong to the golden repertoire of French music. Meanwhile, the French contemporary all-rounder Thierry Escaich, known not only as a composer but also as the organist of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, has woven Beethoven-like force into his score.