It's all about the classical music composers and their works from the last 400 years and much more about music. Hier erfahren Sie alles über die klassischen Komponisten und ihre Meisterwerke der letzten vierhundert Jahre und vieles mehr über Klassische Musik.
Saturday, May 27, 2023
Friday, May 26, 2023
Happiness in Love: Debussy’s L’isle Joyeuse
by Maureen Buja, Interllude
The Fêtes galante style was a term specifically created by the French Academy in the early 18th century to describe Watteau’s paintings of country or parkland parties. It was his way of giving his patrons what they wanted, namely, pictures of themselves, and of giving the Academy what they wanted, namely, pictures on historical or mythological themes. The Academy disapproves of straight portraiture, but a patron has demands he will make on a poor painter, so what was Watteau to do?

Watteau: Embarkation for Cythera (1717)
Cythera, or, in modern Greek Kythira, is the Ionian island where Venus / Aphrodite was born, so would have been a destination for lovers everywhere.

Lancret: Conversation galante (1719) (The Wallace Collection)
The painting is everything a patron could want in a work – beautiful landscape, beautiful figures in beautiful clothes, beautiful statuary, and cupids everywhere. For the Academy, it’s a classical scene with mythological overtones. For the viewer, we have so many expressions of joy in the work: the couples in the middle of the work give us three stages of love – one couple in front of the statue is still engaged in their tryst, the three couples under the trees are in the acts of disengaging, while the couple walking down the hill are looking back in memory. More couples down by the boat are embarking for their voyage back to home. There’s no sorrow, no sadness, just a happiness and satisfaction in a perfect world.
Other painters, such as Fragonard, Lancret, and François de Troy also painted works in this heightened style, but the style itself was gone by the mid-18th century.

Jean François de Troy: La Déclaration d’amour (1731) (Berlin: Charlottenburg Palace)
The French composer Claude Debussy (1862–1918), known for his mastery in making one genre of painting, French Impressionism, into music, took up Watteau’s pastoral ideals with a work from 1904, L’isle Joyeuse, that gave a modernist twist to the older genre. First written for piano, it was later orchestrated with Debussy’s permission by the Italian conductor Bernardino Molinari. The orchestral work had its debut in 1923.
The piano version seems like it starts us at a precarious landing. The dancing rhythms carry us onto the island and up to the grove of Venus, where all delights await. It’s very much a personal piece, as though we are looking through the eyes of a character to see what’s around us.
As an orchestral work, there’s a larger scope for setting the scene. More than just involving an individual character, the orchestra can provide a whole world of people. The celebration is heightened, and there’s more details in the sound picture – the woodwinds flitter Cupid-like, the harp adds another voice, and with the brass sound, it’s as though the whole world glitters.
Conveying a picture in music is difficult but, in this work, Debussy and his orchestrator Molinari give us a world we wish we could just step into.
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Till The End Of Time Vol. II
Disc 2
I'm Always Chasing Rainbows
My Reverie
Dream of Love
And This Is My Beloved
Full Moon and Empty Arms
Somewhere, My Love
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
This Nearly Was Mine
On the Boardwalk (In Atlantic City)
Baubles, Bangles and Beads
Hello, Young Lovers
It's a Grand Night for Singing
Someday My Prince Will Come
Out of My Dreams
A Wonderful Guy
Goodnight, My Someone
Oh, What a Beautiful Morning
Moon Love
Till The End Of Time Vol. I
Disc 1
Some Enchanted Evening
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
Hey There
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
With a Song in My Heart
Autumn Leaves
Easy to Love
The Song from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart)
Star Dust
I'll Get By (As Long as I Have You)
Night and Day
Laura
How Deep Is the Ocean?
Till the End of Time
Tonight We Love
Intermezzo (A Love Story)
No Other Love
Rhapsody in Blue
London Symphony Orchestra ♫ The Symphonic Beatles Play ♫
London Symphony Orchestra ♫ and London Pop Choir
Play ♫ The Best of The Beatles | HD/HQ
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