She has chosen to open with Roussel’s settings of poems by Pierre de Ronsard – a magical sound world mingling voice and flute – and Schubert’s The Shepherd on the Rock, an enchanting duet between clarinet and soprano. She’s joined by renowned flautist Sir James Galway and accomplished young composer and clarinettist Mark Simpson.

Schubert’s tempestuous String Quartet in D minor, performed by the Navarra String Quartet, features beside his song ‘Death and the Maiden’.

And in the richly sensual textures of Ernest Chausson’s Chanson perpetuelle, a woman longs for death, mourning a lost love.

For the ‘Death and the Maiden’ lied and Chanson perpetuelle, de Niese performs with legendary Israeli-American pianist Menahem Pressler. One of the world’s greatest chamber performers, Pressler has been described as ‘a poet, time and again revealing unexpected depths in works that have been endlessly plumbed and surveyed’ (The New York Times).

This key event in Queen Elizabeth Hall’s reopening festival gives Southbank Centre audiences a chance to hear ‘opera’s coolest soprano’ (New York Times Magazine) performing chamber music in an intimate setting alongside an outstanding group of musicians.

Performers

Danielle de Niese soprano
Sir James Galway flute
Mark Simpson clarinet
Menahem Pressler piano
. Navarra String Quartet 
Repertoire

Roussel: 2 Poèmes de Ronsard for voice & flute, Op.26
Schubert: String Quartet in C minor, D.703 (Quartettsatz); Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the rock) for voice, clarinet & piano, D.965
Interval
Chausson: Chanson perpetuelle, Op.37
Schubert: Der Tod und das Mädchen, D.531; String Quartet in D minor, D.810 (Death & the Maiden)