Sofi Jeannin conducts Franck and Ravel

A concert to set the mood for the evening’s mainly French programme from the BBC SO: two generations of Paris’s most influential composers writing for massed voices and creating sonorities that could come from no other country but France. Ravel’s diaphanous vocal writing is interleaved with the richer, darker colours of Franck’s three works. Ravel’s Trois chansons combine vocal dexterity with a wonderful expressiveness while Franck’s offertory, Quae est ista, bursts into life with heart-stopping rapture and glorious melody. The Swedish, but Paris-based, Sofi Jeannin makes a guest appearance with the BBC Singers.