The turn of a century

Who better than Roger -Ducasse to represent the handover between Gabriel Fauré and the generation he trained? From 1898 to 1900 Roger-Ducasse studied in Fauré’s composition class; in 1909 he was a founder of the Société musicale indépendante, which proceeded to name Fauré as its honorary president, and that same year Roger-Ducasse dedicated to him his first string quartet. Later, after taking charge of the ensemble class at the Conservatoire, he in turn became professor of composition there, thereby perpetuating Fauré’s teachings until the outbreak of the Second World War. Fauré’s First Piano Quintet (1906) is complemented here by his pupil’s First Piano Quartet (1912), and both are expertly performed by the Quatuor Strada and Simon Zaoui.