Steven Isserlis celebrates Proust Day with two concerts at Wigmore hall on 31 October. The concerts will be performed in front of a socially distanced audience, and streamed in HD on Wigmore Hall’s website. The streams of both concerts will be available for 30 days on-demand.

At 13:00 GMT, Isserlis and pianist Connie Shih will give a recital featuring works by Hahn, Saint-Saëns, Adès, Chaminade, Fauré and Franck.

Wigmore Hall writes:

“Regular collaborators cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Connie Shih present a lunchtime recital with a programme including Thomas Adès’ enjoyable contemporary work Lieux retrouvés and César Franck’s cello setting of the Violin Sonata in A – a setting that came about after the cellist Jules Delsart heard the violin arrangement in concert and loved it so much he asked Franck permission to rearrange the work.”

This evening, at 19:30, Isserlis and Shih, are joined by a stellar group of artists to celebrate Marcel Proust on the 98th anniversary of his death.

Wigmore Hall writes:

“Anticipating 2022, which brings the centenary of the death of French novelist Marcel Proust (1871-1922), and at John Gilhooly’s invitation, cellist Steven Isserlis has conceived a concert of music with links to the epoch-making French writer. Proust loved music and chamber music in particular meant a great deal to him: musical references are common throughout his vast masterpiece À la recherche du temps pe.”

On 31 October, Isserlis celebrates such references and Proust’s wider fascination with individual composers and their works – not least the Venezuelan-born, French-naturalised composer, pianist and conductor Reynaldo Hahn, his long-term friend and short-term lover. He is joined by Lucy Crowe, Alina Ibragimova, Rachel Roberts, Connie Shih and Alasdair Beatson, in an evening of music and word narrated by actor Simon Callow.”

For more information, and to watch the concerts at home in HD, please visit wigmore-hall.org.uk.