From Baroque to XX Century in France

Historical notes

French music has known its greatest peaks in the Baroque period and in the first years of XX Century. Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most emblematic representatives of French Baroque. That’s especially him that the new France of Debussy and Ravel was considering, when looking at the past.

Calls across time

In this program, Baroque and XX Century communicate. After the famous E minor Suite of Rameau, Debussy’s Hommage à Rameau almost seems an epitaph. Here the Baroque composer sounds like a far memory in the first notes, which are played without pedal. Debussy remains himself, he transforms Rameau’s material into something new. He writes an almost modal melody and he turns it into the basis for a new esatonal harmony.
In Tombeau de Couperin, Ravel’s homage to Baroque starts with toccatas and menuettos, without abandoning the brightness and the rhythm of the past. Ravel entitled his Suite to Couperin, but in fact, he is referring to all the French tradition, including Rameau. Each piece of this Suite is dedicated to Ravel’s friends, who died during World War I.