On the whole the French don’t really celebrate Halloween (too American), but if you find one who does, don’t say “trick or treat.” Rather, demand “Des bonbons ou un sort!” – candy or a spell.
While France might not be down with the whole Halloween thing, many of the country’s great artists, writers, and composers could totally conjure a Halloween vibe. Think Odilon Redon’s “The Smiling Spider,” Charles Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du mal,” or Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse macabre.”
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll have three pieces of French music totally suitable for the season.
Maurice Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit” (“Gaspard of the Night”) – musical responses to the weird and sinister poetry of Aloysius Bertrand – is a suite of creepy impressions of (1) a flirtatious water spirit, (2) a hanged man at sunset against the backdrop of a tolling bell, and (3) a vampiric dwarf named Scarbo. Gina Bachauer will be the pianist, and Sir John Gielgud will preface each of the movements with recitations of the Bertrand poems.
Claude Debussy was enthralled by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, which he knew through Baudelaire’s translations. At the time of his death, he left incomplete sketches for two operas after Poe stories – “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Devil in the Belfry.” We’ll hear fragments of the former, conducted by Georges Prêtre.
Finally, we’ll listen to the third of the “Etudes in Minor Keys,” subtitled “Scherzo Diabolico,” by Charles-Valentin Alkan. Alkan, a sometimes neighbor of Chopin and Georges Sand, shared a home with his illegitimate son, two apes, and a hundred cockatoos. Franz Liszt is alleged to have commented, “Alkan had the finest technique I had ever known, but preferred the life of a recluse.”
Best known is the story surrounding the circumstances of his death: while reaching for a copy of the Talmud, situated on a high shelf of a heavy bookcase, the case let go and crushed Alkan beneath it. It’s been suggested that the composer actually collapsed while in the kitchen – but when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. We’ll hear his etude in a recording by the late Michael Ponti.
I hope you’ll join me for “Jacques o’ Lanterns” – lurid music by French composers for Halloween on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
