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.

Jamie Syer, piano. Alix Goolden Performance Hall. Live performance of the Fugue from “Le tombeau de Couperin” by Maurice Ravel.