The Enchanted Garden

Ravel was fiercely protective of his privacy and regarded his home in Montfort-l’Amaury as a sanctuary. He designed the Japanese garden himself, filling it with exotic flowers. It was a place of tranquillity and beauty where he loved to seek inspiration. This inspiration bore fruit in his suite Ma mère l’Oye, based on the fairy tales of Mother Goose. The final movement of this piece opens onto an enchanted garden. This nature-themed programme also features works by four composers who learnt from Ravel how to paint with sound: Sofia Gubaidulina, who evokes a mystical garden in Garten von Freuden und Traurigkeiten; Toru Takemitsu, whose hushed masterpiece And then I knew ’twas Wind is featured; Olivier Messiaen, whose clarinet solo from Quatuor pour la fin du temps is performed; and George Crumb, whose Vox Balaenae takes the audience on a theatrical journey into the depths of the ocean among whales, bathed in blue light. Ravel’s transcription for two pianos of Claude Debussy’s Nocturnes will be the final piece performed at the concert. This piece is full of striking sounds, from the stillness of clouds drifting in the air to the exotic festivity that suddenly bursts into life, and the mythical sirens that lure Odysseus and his sailors as they travel across the sea.