MUSIC MEDITATIONS - Hommage à Rameau

Every concert season a new set of pieces becomes my program.

I spend a good amount of time creating well crafted programs, and I especially love to offer thematic programming. Sometimes I exchange a few pieces for a specific venue, or I might add another group of pieces when a longer program is needed.

Some of the works stay in my repertoire for several seasons, but many of them simply get forgotten to be re-discovered years later.

Hommage à Rameau is part of a set of three pieces by Claude Debussy called Images. All three are stunning, but this one - the middle one - is hauntingly beautiful. I recorded the set some years ago for a CD project, but then this movement went into the background of my programming and eventually disappeared out of my sight.

Recently I found these stunning images by Swiss photographer Edi Wildbolz. They are a collection of impressions from a helicopter flight over the Matterhorn, Switzerland’s most iconic peak. Looking at the stark landscape and the meditative power of these high elevations, I began to hear the sounds of Hommage à Rameau in my head, sounds of a piece I had not touched in years.

Hommage à Rameau, a tribute to French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), but also a tribute to French music in general. Debussy expresses such veneration, admiration and reverence in this piece. I felt that the images of these most beloved mountain chains, peaks and vistas highlighted so well the deeply felt emotions of Debussy’s composition.

Enjoy this short meditation with the sounds of Debussy’s most awe-inspiring writing, and the majestic mountain beauty of the Swiss Alps.