LA MER AND BOLERO Comes to Det KGL. Teater Next Month

Dinis Sousa conducts the Royal Danish Orchestra in performances of works by Debussy and Ravel, featuring Ravel's jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G Majormasterfully executed by French pianist Bertrand Chamayou.

For his only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, Debussy found inspiration in Maeterlinck's Symbolist drama, becoming immersed in themes of jealousy and unrequited love. His opera's dreamlike, modern soundscapes earned him cult status in Paris. Understanding why becomes clear upon listening to the orchestral suite derived from the opera.

Debussy's major orchestral work La Mer was subtitled Trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre. The three movements are entitled De l'aube à midi sur la mer (From Dawn to Noon on the Sea), Jeux de vagues (Play of the Waves) and Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea).

When the composer George Gershwin sought to take lessons from Ravel, the composer responded: "It would rob your melodies of their spontaneity, and you would end up writing bad Ravel." Nonetheless, Ravel learned from Gershwin's light style, which inspired the jazzy rhythms and 'blue' notes of his piano concerto. The result was a wildly virtuosic work that defies categorisation.

Ravel's provocative Boléro stirred passions in 1928. Was it the work of a madman or a genius? His hypnotic and mesmerising masterpiece continues to enchant as the orchestra's instruments ingeniously reveal themselves one after another.

PROGRAMME

Claude Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande Suite
Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major
Claude Debussy: La Mer
Maurice Ravel: Boléro

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