Parisian Connections

Fauré: Dolly Suite

Debussy: Petite Suite

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Stravinsky: Rite of Spring

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Debussy: Prélude de L’après-midi d’un Faune (arr. Ravel)

Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye (suite)

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Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps

Paris around the turn of the 20th Century was perhaps the single most important place for artistic excitement in every form. Musically it was a hot melting-pot where the older generations of composers such as Saint-Saens and Franck were competing with the ‘new’ young innovators. This Parisian avant-garde comprised not only French composers such as Debussy and Ravel, but revolutionaries headed by Stravinsky and Satie. These programmes display the amazing range of sounds being created in Paris for Piano Duet at this time. Stravinsky’s Masterpiece, The Rite of Spring, is one of the last examples of a composer creating a 4-hand arrangement alongside its more well-known orchestral version. Stravinsky played the 4-hand version with Debussy in private 11 months before the infamous premiere in 1913!