Nigella

Following in the footsteps of his elders (Chausson, Bizet, Gounod…), Gabriel Fauré perpetuated the tradition of incidental music to enhance plays and reinforce their dramaturgy. He left behind him several major works that are among the most beautiful pages of this repertoire, sometimes unfairly considered as old-fashioned by some of today's artists. Yet music for the stage is of major interest, especially from the golden age of French music, stretching from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, when live music was very much an integral part of the theatrical creation process. Today, not only do very few authors call upon composers to write music for the stage, but live music has also long since been replaced by the more convenient and, alas, undeniably more economical recording.

From neighbouring Spain to the Orient, passing by eastern lands, the second big wave of exoticism which reached its summit between the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, unquestionably stimulated by numerous universal exhibitions organised in Europe, greatly influenced the writing of occidental composers in search of a new language, including many french composers, thirsty for new sonorities and looking to leave the academism of the past behind them. For Maurice Ravel who, excepting his one and only tour to the United States, had never undertaken a long journey to a far-away country, preferring to stay at home surrounded by small trinkets, most of which only held any value for their owner, finding inspiration in music from other countries or in literature which evoked unknown lands in a new aesthetic was not only a way of escaping the real world but also of creating his own universe, inhabited by imaginary characters where the "swiss clockmaker" could control everything, as he did with the cut-out stars in the shutters at his house in Monfort-L'Amaury which served to recreate a starlit night when the master, a victim of insomnia, managed to catch a few minutes of sleep in the middle of the day…