Grisey: Quatre Chants
Experience Gérard Grisey’s profound meditation on death, brought to life by the London Sinfonietta.
A rare opportunity awaits to experience French composer Gérard Grisey’s stunningly dark and disorientating Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil, presented by the London Sinfonietta. This mighty piece 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.
As a pioneering figure in the spectral music movement – music intended to imitate the spectral qualities of a sound – Grisey explores transformation and transfigurations in sound, calling on microtones and rapid gong acrobatics to conjure these profound and disruptive sound worlds.
The piece stands as one of the most significant concert works of the late 20th century, and calls upon soprano and ensemble to create a musical meditation on death divided into four sections: the death of an angel, civilisation, the voice, and humanity. Perhaps now, more than ever, it is a piece for our times.
Performers
London Sinfonietta
Jack Sheen conductor
Jonathan Morton violin
Nina Guo soprano
Repertoire
Cassandra Miller: for mira
Rebecca Saunders: Stirrings Still 2
J White: Drinking and hooting machine
Grisey: 4 Chants pour franchir le seuil
Need to know
Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer at 6.15pm, pre-concert talk. Back to Basics … An introduction to Gérard Grisey with Julian Anderson. Free.
For your visit
This event is held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall Southbank Centre
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is open from 90 minutes before events start until they finish. It’s closed at all other times.
Plan your visit
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is home to both our second-largest auditorium and the Purcell Room.
Getting here
Our address is Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.
The nearest tube stations to us are Waterloo and Embankment; Waterloo is also the nearest train station. And more than 20 different London bus routes pass within 500 metres of our venues. More information on getting here by rail, road or river is available on our Getting here page.
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Please note that we’re unable to accept cash payments across our venues.
Access
We’re working hard to remove barriers, so that our facilities and events can be accessible to as many people as possible.
All help points, toilets, performance and exhibition spaces at the Southbank Centre are accessible to all, as are the cafes, bars and restaurants. We also have excellent public transport links with step-free access.
All information about booking wheelchair spaces, step-free access, blue badge parking, access maps and guides and other help available whilst you’re here, including details about our Access Scheme, can be found on our Access page.
Food & drink
From coffee to cocktails, filling favourites to fine dining, plus some of London’s best street food – it’s all here at the Southbank Centre.