PIANIST Lucy Parham comes to St Mary’s Church at Dorchester on Sunday 21st September at 7pm, with Sir Simon Russell-Beale to present Reverie: The Life and Loves of Claude Debussy.

This is the fourth in her extraordinary Composer Portrait series and for this exploration of the prolific and innovative French composer, she is joined by one of Britain’s greatest actors.

One of the most influential and versatile composers of the early 20th century, Claude Debussy absorbed and transformed cultural influences from countries as far apart as Scotland (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair), Japan (Poissons d’Or) and the USA (Cake Walk). A crucial element of his complex intellectual and emotional world was an entangled love life that included illicit trysts in Jersey, a brush with a revolver and even a suicide attempt.

The narrative of Rêverie, which takes the form of a personal journal, follows him from his initial success with the Prix de Rome in 1885 to his untimely death in 1918. It is punctuated with solo piano works ranging from the ever-popular lyricism of Clair de Lune, Rêverie and The Girl with the Flaxen Hair to such virtuosic showpieces as Jardins sous la Pluie, the Etudes and L’Isle Joyeuse.