Bastille Day proved to be the perfect time to attend this celebration of (mostly) French chamber music, played by members of the ACO. Guests were the Norwegian pianist Christian Ihle Hadland, the Japanese-American violinist Karen Gomyo, and the internationally renowned mezzo-soprano Susan Graham.

The concert opened with Ravel’s three tantalisingly cool settings of Mallarmé, and from the first bars the musicians achieved a wonderfully subtle blend. Graham lightened her voice effectively, producing a seamless legato despite the tricky intervallic leaps of the melodic line, and floating some exquisite high notes. And, befitting a recipient of the Legion d’honneur, her French was faultless: not always the case, even in some of the greatest recordings of this exquisite cycle. Opening the second half of the concert, she performed Respighi’s Il tramonto (The sunset: an Italian translation of Shelley’s poem) for mezzo and string quartet. Here, she showed us the warmth and the commitment to drama that continue to serve her so well on the operatic stage.

Two substantial chamber works were in the program. The largest was César Franck’s Piano Quintet (1879). A well-known music lover told me afterwards that he didn’t care for it – the piece, not the performance – because...