Post by julesd68 on Nov 28, 2014 17:16:51 GMT
Last night while driving home listening to Classic FM I heard the most wonderful piano work by Debussy - 'L'Isle Joyeuse'.
Debussy spent the summer of 1904 on Jersey with Emma Bardac, the mistress for whose sake he deserted his wife. While there he composed L’Isle Joyeuse, in which the piano pays tribute to Watteau’s painting Pèlerinage à l’île de Cythère (The Embarkation for Cythera). The pianist’s fluttery, frisking hands brush away the melancholy suspension of Watteau’s Cythera. The pictorial island exists in space, and the people in it, whether coming or going, are immobilized like Venus on her pedestal. Debussy’s musical island belongs in time, which hectically hurtles towards the climax that Watteau postpones. After eight minutes of frenzied play, L’Isle Joyeuse ends in a spasm of abandonment or even pornographic about what happens on Cythera so long as the scenery remains invisible. (text: Islands. A trip through time and space by Peter Conrad)
Here it is, beautifully played by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet who I've been lucky enough to see in play Ravel in concert.
Debussy spent the summer of 1904 on Jersey with Emma Bardac, the mistress for whose sake he deserted his wife. While there he composed L’Isle Joyeuse, in which the piano pays tribute to Watteau’s painting Pèlerinage à l’île de Cythère (The Embarkation for Cythera). The pianist’s fluttery, frisking hands brush away the melancholy suspension of Watteau’s Cythera. The pictorial island exists in space, and the people in it, whether coming or going, are immobilized like Venus on her pedestal. Debussy’s musical island belongs in time, which hectically hurtles towards the climax that Watteau postpones. After eight minutes of frenzied play, L’Isle Joyeuse ends in a spasm of abandonment or even pornographic about what happens on Cythera so long as the scenery remains invisible. (text: Islands. A trip through time and space by Peter Conrad)
Here it is, beautifully played by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet who I've been lucky enough to see in play Ravel in concert.
