Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 07/16/2014, uploaded on 12/04/2014

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Claude Debussy wrote two books of preludes, completed in 1910 and 1913.  He placed evocative titles at the end of each prelude, thus downplaying their programmatic aspects.

Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir (“Sounds and scents swirl in the evening air”) is inspired by Baudelaire’s famous poem, Harmonie du Soir:

                                  Now is the time when, vibrating on its stem,

                                  each flower exhales in vapor like incense from a censer;

                                  Sounds and scents mingle in the evening air;

                                  Melancholy waltz and languorous vertigo!

Minstrels is a humorous prelude that pays tribute to the American minstrel groups that performed in Europe around 1900. Minstrel shows were put on by household servants on American plantations, but would later be performed at street fairs.      Anna Khanina

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.