Martin Oei - A touch of Paris

Claude Debussy

The musical journey begins with Debussy's Jardins sous la pluie from the Estampes , this piece takes you to a garden in the Normandy town of Orbec during an extremely heavy rain shower. We hear the sounds of the wind blowing, a raging thunderstorm and raindrops falling. Debussy incorporates two folk melodies in this work, the lullaby Dodo, l'enfant do [fr] and Nous n'irons plus au bois [fr] parce qu'il fait un temps insupportable (We no longer go to the forest because the weather is unbearable is). Then we hear a selection from Debussy's Préludes , in which we witness a series of musical paintings. From the picturesque hills of Anacapri to the stormy Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest.

Maurice Ravel

After the break we are immersed in the dark and poetic world of Maurice Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit , inspired by poems by Aloysius Bertrand. Ondine describes a water fairy, she tries with her singing to seduce a man to come to her kingdom, deep at the bottom of the sea, in a triangle of water, fire and earth. Le Gibet ('the gallows') is a macabre work, throughout the work we hear the sound of the bells (ostinato B-flat) surrounded by dark chords. 'A bell sounds against the walls of a city with the carcass of a hanged man on the horizon, reddened by the setting sun'. Scarbo is a poltergeist, half troll, half ghost – a devilish dwarf, who makes pirouettes, appears suddenly and disappears again, who disturbs people's sleep in a frightening way. Throughout this piece we hear repetitive tones, alternating with strong accents and this keeps repeating itself. At the end, the music dissolves into nothingness. Scarbo, the poltergeist disappears. The afternoon culminates with Ravel's enchanting La Franse , in which the music flows like a swirling dance in an elegant ballroom.