It's tempting to paint a nation's music with a single brush stroke. Take the music of France, for instance. Tasteful. Refined. Symmetrical. Those are all words that have been conscripted to encapsulate French music over the ages.

But one simply can't cloak a country's music with a few jingoistic qualifiers. This Sunday's chamberWORKS! concert at the Dofasco Centre for the Arts, 190 King William Street, will be proof enough of that.

ChamberWORKS! artistic director Jack Mendelsohn has programmed three works under the title French Collection: A string trio from the late 1780s by Ignace Pleyel, a trio for flute, cello, and piano from 1862 by Jeanne-Louise Farrenc, and Cesar Franck's 1879 Piano Quintet.

But this is a French collection with a Teutonic connection. Pleyel, who was born in Austria, studied with Haydn, later moving to Paris.

According to Mendelsohn, Pleyel's Trio sounds like Mozart.

"If you didn't know it was Pleyel," he says, "you would have difficulty deciding whether it was written by Haydn or Mozart."

As for the Parisian-born Farrenc, "her music is probably more German sounding than French because she was influenced by Hummel, Schumann, and Weber," explains Mendelsohn. "The Scherzo, it's almost like it's out of (Mendelssohn's) A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The work will feature Hamilton flutist Suzanne Shulman, with Mendelsohn on cello, and Valerie Tryon at the piano.

Tryon will be at the ivories for the Franck. "Frankly, I think it's an incredible piece," says Mendelsohn.

This will be the second performance of Franck's august chef-d'oeuvre in Hamilton within a week, the Aviv Quartet and Marianna Hurnetska giving an impassioned, well-argued account last Sunday at the Hamilton Conservatory.

"It is in a way Wagner-like, the changes in harmonies, and lots of modulations."

Even so, the Liege-born, Paris-based Franck was no carbon copy of Wagner, but was venerated in his lifetime as the father of modern French music.

"The music does not sound like Wagner," comments Mendelsohn.

"He (Franck) may have used the same techniques, the same ideas, but it's definitely French music."

Concert time is 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $30, $25, senior $25, $20, and student $5. Call 905-522-7529.

The French connection continues next week at the 22nd annual Good Friday concert given by Paul Grimwood and the Choir of Central Presbyterian Church. Grimwood and company will perform Maurice Durufle's Requiem, a work they've presented twice before.

"I think it really is French," said Grimwood of Durufle's 1947 oeuvre, which will be accompanied by a small orchestra and organist Bill Maddox.

"It's just so impressionistic. It's kind of close to Ravel.

"I don't think anybody could hear this stuff and think that this came from Germany."

The same can't be said for J. S. Bach's cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden (Christ lay in Death's Bands), which will be sung in the original German by Beverly Bronte-Tinkew, Jennifer Wray, David Baldwin and Rudy Neufeld.

Start time is 8 p.m. at Central Presbyterian, 165 Charlton Ave. W.

Tickets are $20, student/child $10.

Advance tickets of 2 for $35 are available only from the church office.

Call 905-522-9098.

Leonard Turnevicius writes on classical music for The Spectator.