Czech Philharmonic • Stéphane Denève

“…And then once more the slimy wall parted, and Kuranes saw the city of marble and beryl, and its walls and towers were untouched by time. Delight and expectancy filled him as he gazed on the sea and the thin trees on the mountain near the city, and felt the warm sun in his face. But this time he was not snatched back to the world of waking, for through the gently parting wall he descended bodily into the city of vision. Down the hillside he floated, and past the great bronze gates to the streets of unequalled beauty; where he walked no longer as a stranger. He had come home…”

–⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Celephaïs

Between 1918 and 1932, H. P. Lovecraft wrote a series of stories taking place in Dreamlands, which can be entered only when sleeping. His texts inspired the contemporary French composer Guillaume Connesson to write three symphonic poems. He had become a fan of the writer already in puberty, then he reread the stories as an adult and desired to immerse himself once again in that world of fantasy.

“When a commission came from the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra for a composition, at first I planned to write a big symphonic poem about the life of that American author. I had already written one like that as a teenager; it was my very first orchestral composition. I decided to return to his universe.

I wanted to create a fresco full of colours, rather Baroque, explosive. All of that is in Lovecraft. Every morning he wrote down his dreams, and then he recast them as literary texts. It is a series of visions, just as images in a dream alternate very quickly. A dream turns into a nightmare, and light into a stream of shadows.”

Ravel’s second piano concerto was also written on commission, but Paul Wittgenstein, who requested the work, had certain very clear requirements. The pianist had lost his right hand fighting on the Eastern Front in World War I. Determined to continue the concert career he had begun not long beforehand, he developed the playing technique of his left hand and began arranging the already existing repertoire for his own purposes. At the same time, he commissioned several composers to write new pieces for him.

Ravel’s composition did not satisfy his demanding customer. “Had I wanted to play without an orchestra, I would not have commissioned a concerto,” he commented ironically about the long solo opening the work. Ravel, however, did not reconsider, so Wittgenstein gave the premiere in Vienna on 27 November 1931 in the original version.
To begin the concert, we will hear whether Maurice Ravel also inspired his compatriot Albert Roussel in the ballet suite Bacchus et Ariane, then the concert will end with us joining George Gershwin on a visit to Paris, where Ravel went in 1936 to study under his role model.

Performers