Opening Concert

Saturday 1st August 2026 – 21 PM
Collégiale Saint-Pancrace, Aups

To open the second edition of the Haut-Var Chamber Music Festival, the musicians are delighted to present a concert rich in colour and emotion. Bringing together the festival’s eight artists, the programme features a variety of chamber music ensembles, ranging from trios to quintets, blending the timbres of wind instruments, strings and the piano.

This opening evening takes you on a journey through the romantic worlds of 20th-century Germany and France. You will have the chance to hear the “8 Pieces for Clarinet, Viola and Piano” by the German composer Max Bruch, whose "Rumänische Melodie" delighted the audience during an encore at the first edition of the festival. These profound and passionate works complement Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat major perfectly; a major work that epitomises German Romanticism with its style that is by turns tender and lyrical, and by turns virtuosic and impassioned.

French Romanticism, meanwhile, is represented by Francis Poulenc, with his Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano, and by the composer Mel Bonis. Poetic flourishes, harmonic subtlety and lyricism will transport you to a gentle, dreamy atmosphere, thanks to the combination of Poulenc’s timbres and Mel Bonis’s impressionistic style.

From its very first edition, the festival has been committed to including female composers in its programme, starting with Clara Schumann and Louise Farrenc. For this second edition, in addition to the performance of Mel Bonis’s sublime trio at the opening concert, you will have the pleasure of discovering the contemporary composer Camille Pépin at the closing concert.