Ensemble 360

A programme of
DEBUSSY Cello Sonata in D minor
RAVEL La Valse for piano
CAPLET Quintet for piano and wind

With so many men dying on the battlefields of France during the First World War, the emotional impact on French composers, directly and indirectly involved in the war, was profound. Members of Ensemble 360 perform this lunchtime concert featuring works by three such composers. André Caplet was gassed during the War, which eventually caused his death in 1925, although his Quintet for piano and wind was written in 1898 while he was still a student.

Caplet’s friend Debussy was deeply affected by the impact of the war and wrote the Cello Sonata in the months after the Ypres offensive in 1915 – as a necessary escape into what he called 'classical form, in the good sense of the word'. Ravel's La Valse was written in 1919–20. Though he denied that it was influenced by the war, it is impossible to imagine a darker tribute to the Viennese waltz. Part of Love and War Music in the Round’s Festival of World Class Chamber Music.