A French Evening 19.3.

Thu 19.3. Taulumäki church at 18

Lorenzo Passerini, conductor

Erik Satie: Trois petites pièces montées
Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin  
L’Éventail de Jeanne, ballet music (composers: Maurice Ravel, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, Jacques Ibert, Alexis Roland-Manuel, Marcel Delannoy, Albert Roussel, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Georges Auric & Florent Schmitt)

France has always shown Europe and the rest of the world what it means to be a civilized nation, a cradle of culture, a herald of new winds: the Western world would look very different without Descartes, Voltaire, the Lumières and Proust — not to mention the scientists, gastronomes and visual artists from Rococo to Impressionism, or the cultural icons from Chanel to Asterix. And the musicians from Pérotin to Piaf. Paris did not earn its reputation as the Mecca of light and romance for nothing!

So let the Gallic artists of the tumultuous early years of the 20th century guide us northern Ugrians in what it means to be unapologetically oneself while still honoring tradition just the right amount: Erik Satie satirized, with eccentric flair, the excesses of dining; Maurice Ravel movingly reshaped Baroque dances into his own; and Jeanne Dubost, director of a ballet school, asked ten of her composer friends each for a little tune for her young dancers, the result being a heart-melting and oh-so-French musical fan. He who dares, wins!