Chesnut Hill performs Debussy and Ravel

Chestnut Hill Concert's four-program series "Debussy and His World" hits its high note Friday when the best-loved chamber works by Debussy, the innovator of musical impressionism, and Ravel, the sonic explorer, are paired like bookends.

The program at The Kate in Old Saybrook will include Debussy's Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano and Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Piano, plus the two composers' chamber masterpieces, their string quartets. Both composers wrote just one, and both quartets are remarkable for their staying power.

The musicians include violinists Jennifer Frautschi and Xiao-Dong Wang, violist Dimitri Murrath, cellist and CHC artistic director Ronald Thomas, and pianist Mihae Lee.

The program, with its pairing, is both unusual and ideal for a summer evening, with its evocative and dreamy slow movements. To this listener, the Ravel quartet is always fresh, always entrancing, and wins the play-off against the Debussy, but you be the judge.

- MILTON MOORE

Chestnut Hill Concert, 8 p.m. Friday, The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook; $25 and $30, free for children and teens when accompanied by an adult; 1-877-503-1286, thekate.org.