Croquis parisien sets Paul Verlaine’s poem of the same name for soprano and string quartet. Short and densely imagined, the poem moves rapidly through contrasting images and atmospheres: moonlight reflected on smoke-filled Parisian rooftops, a grey sky and weeping wind, the distant cry of a cat, and finally the poet wandering through the city while dreaming of Plato, Phidias, Salamis and Marathon.

The setting draws closely on the musical qualities of Verlaine’s French — its rhythms, recurring phonetic patterns and abrupt changes of image. The work unfolds in four sections separated by three instrumental misterioso transitions. These recurring passages act as reminiscences of the moonlit, smoke-filled rooftops of the opening verse, returning between successive scenes and giving formal unity to the piece.

The work was commissioned by Culture Espérance Roquette in Paris and developed through an international collaboration involving the New Zealand string quartet Korutet, French soprano Alice Fagard and a network of international composers co-founded in Paris in 2013.