L'enfance

Description

Music as Child’s Play. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, ingenuousness, the picturesque, tender emotions, softened sensitivity, and the enchantment of the child’s world fascinated several French composers. In series of pieces for piano four hands, each with his own temperament, his conception of childhood, and the variety of his registers, the listener is transported to the land of dreams and the composer himself casts a nostalgic glance back on his childhood. With soothing languor and a penetrating tone, Gabriel Fauré leads us into the intimate world of the young Dolly (1893-1896). In Jeux d’enfants (1871), Georges Bizet evokes youthful joy with that finesse, poetry, and clarity that are typically French. In his Petite Suite (1889), Claude Debussy offers us four tableaux full of that sonic voluptuousness that made the charm of his elegant and supple playing, then it is Maurice Ravel’s turn, passionate about childhood themes, to tell us these tales of Ma mère l’oye (1908-1910) and to sign, with his secret and discreet lyricism, one of the most poetic works of his time. Each with his own style and particular colors, Bizet, Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel knew how to cast an amazed gaze on the world of childhood. In their works for piano four hands dedicated to the childlike universe, which are far more than simple salon pieces, they transport the listener to the land of tender, voluptuous, touching, and true dreams.