6èmes Rencontres Culturelles d'Usson : Le Jardin féerique, contes en musique à 4 mains

We all know La Danse Macabre, The Sorcerer's Apprentice or Ma Mère l'Oye, “hits” of French music! Why not rediscover them in their original 4-handed version, on period instruments, by the wonderful pianists of Duo Ondine?

Since the 1850s, the symphonic poem has been a new mode of expression for composers which leaves room for pure music and magnifies the orchestra. First coming from Germanic or Slavic Europe, he takes children's tales or philosophical legends from romantic authors to color them with evocative sounds. During the Belle-Epoque, St-Saëns, Debussy, Dukas and Ravel, all pianists, took to their black and white keyboards to find inspiration before orchestrating their scores following the legacy of Rameau or Berlioz and giving birth to the symbolist or impressionist tones characteristic of French art.

Thus St-Saëns takes inspiration from the poem Equality-Fraternity by the poet-doctor Jean Lahor for the theme of his Danse Macabre, Dukas from Goethe's eponymous ballad for The Sorcerer's Apprentice – two world-famous works which will delight the cinema of 'animation.

As for Ravel, he wrote his sequel Ma Mère l'Oye based on the tales of Perrault, Mmes Leprince de Beaumont and d'Aulnoy, for the four little hands of the children of his friends Godebski, Jean and Mimi, before flesh it out, orchestrate it and make it a ballet suite of flamboyant dreaminess.

Finally Debussy pays homage to the poet Mallarmé in 1892 for his strange Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun which suggests "the dream of a desire finally realized: the complete possession of all nature" then Debussy visits the universal exhibitions of years 1889 & 1900, where he discovered the worlds of Antiquity and the Orient which he transcended into fantasized worlds through particularly descriptive music in the Ancient Epigraphs.

So, we are rarely given the opportunity to hear these tales and legends in their original version where the piano is the creative mediator before the orchestra. This is what the Ondine Duo offers us – first prize in the Bolzano 2023 international chamber music competition – which takes hold of these imaginary worlds on a Pleyel piano from 1889, to stir up in each of us, young and old, the spirit of dreams.

Claude Debussy > 1862 -1918
Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun > 1892 – 1894
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Paul Dukas > 1865 -1935
The Sorcerer's Apprentice > 1897
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Claude Debussy
Ancient epigraphs > 1914 - 1915
To invoke Pan, god of the summer wind
For the rattlesnake dancer
For the Egyptian
To thank the rain in the morning
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Maurice Ravel > 1875 -1937
My Mother Goose > 1908 - 1910
Pavane of Sleeping Beauty
Tom Thumb
Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas
The Interviews of Beauty and the Beast
The Fairy Garden
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Camille Saint-Saëns > 1835 -1921
Dance of Macabre op.40 > 1874

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