Philharmonia Chamber Players: Turina and Ravel

Four Philharmonia string players give a free performance of Ravel’s String Quartet, widely regarded as one of the pinnacles of the chamber music repertoire.

By turns lively, lyrical, contemplative and stormy, Ravel’s masterpiece requires great technical and expressive skill – and our string players have plenty of both. If you’re new to French music, this is a fantastic place to start.

Spanish composer Joaquín Turina took what he admired about the music of Debussy and Ravel (who he met while studying in Paris) and gave it a distinctive Spanish, folkloric flavour. He gave a vivid description of the moment that inspired The Bullfighter’s Prayer: ‘During an afternoon of bullfighting in the Madrid arena … I saw my work. Behind a small door, there was a chapel, filled with incense, where toreadors went right before facing death [and] in front of this poor altar… prayed to God to protect their lives.’