the unbearable lightness of french piano music
While preparing a video on teaching the piano music of Debussy, Satie and Ravel, I can’t resist posting this live performance of mine. From a concert in Victoria, BC called “Notes from Paris” here is the Fugue from Ravel’s suite “Le tombeau de Couperin.” A piece of music called ‘tombeau’ (tomb) is a ‘memorial.’ The poignancy you hear is even more compelling when you know that each movement of the suite was dedicated to a close friend of Ravel’s who was killed in WW I. The French still call it La grande guerre. During that war, Ravel was a truck driver, stationed at Verdun.
Listen to this ethereal music, and remember lives of young soldiers lost, and lives of survivors forever changed.