‘On the wings of a song, I’ll carry you, my love, away…’

A festival celebrating song seems a wonderful opportunity to examine the intimate world of Schumann’s superb song-cycle Frauenlieben und-leben through a new lens: string quartet and voice. Though not written for this combination, it is at heart a piece of direct storytelling full of musical conversation and memory, and this arrangement by William Thorp puts the intimacy and directness of chamber music at the centre of the story, transporting us to a new world of life and love.

We also perform songs by Clara Schumann, and Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. This programme began life as a set of recording sessions for radio broadcast when the Consone Quartet and I were BBC New Generation Artists, so it is wonderful to see it come to fruition for a live audience in York. Helen Charlston

“I would happily listen to them all day” Sir Roger Norrington