Shanghai Philharmonic | Two September chamber concerts, tickets from ¥80

The Shanghai Philharmonic's Approach SPO chamber series plays twice in September, both nights in the orchestra's own recital hall at 1498 Wuding Road West in Jing'an. Three price bands at ¥80 / 121 / 221, sold through the 演际 (LiveLife) WeChat mini-programme and on Damai. Both concerts are played by the orchestra's section principals.

12 September | Moonlight Romance

An evening built almost entirely on arrangements. The first half is four pieces in one scoring, cello with wind sextet: Tchaikovsky's Nocturne, Glazunov's Chant du ménestrel, Fauré's Après un rêve and a Saint-Saëns Romance, all of them originally written for a solo instrument with piano or orchestra.

The second half opens with Philippe Gaubert's Trois aquarelles for flute, cello and piano, the only work on the programme its composer wrote as chamber music to begin with. Then two Debussy: Clair de lune for flute and piano, and the Petite Suite, CD 71, in a wind-quintet version. It ends with the third movement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Quintet in B-flat for piano and winds.

Wu Minzhe, cello; Zhou Shinan, flute; Xue Yi, oboe; Zhang Ao, clarinet; Chen Qu, bassoon; Xu Hui, horn; with Cao Yufan as guest pianist.

19 September | Shimmering Europa

Four composers, four countries, all writing around the turn of the twentieth century. It opens with the first movement of Ravel's String Quartet in F, M. 35, written when he was twenty-eight and the only quartet he composed.

Then three Liszt piano pieces as the harpist Henriette Renié arranged them for harp alone: Le rossignol, the concert étude Un sospiro, and the third of the Liebesträume. Renié was a harpist and composer of the early twentieth century, and arrangements like these are part of what she left the instrument.

After the interval, Milhaud's Seventh String Quartet in B-flat, Op. 87, and Dvořák's Terzetto in C major, Op. 74. The Dvořák is scored unusually for two violins and viola with no cello: he wrote it to play at home with a chemistry student who lodged in his building and a violin teacher.

Han Junpeng and Gu Xuancheng, violins; Zhao Qianqi, viola; Shao Lei, cello; Chen Yuying, harp.

Both programmes are subject to change on the night.

See everything at the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra Recital Hall on Shanghai Concerts