Robert desnos biography bach

In this critical biography of Robert Desnos (1900.
Born in Paris, Robert Desnos (1900-1945) found himself at the vanguard of Surrealism, and was one of the first poets to experiment with automatic writing.
He died clutching a rose the nurse had given him.

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Disc 1:

1. Claude DebussyPrélude: Canope 3.05

Born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris in 1862, Debussy determined to invent an entirely new form of music that was entirely modern, appealing to aesthetic sensibilities beyond conventional cultural constructs. This lofty ambition would be substantially achieved in 1894 with Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), after which, according to Pierre Boulez, "the art of music began to beat with a new pulse."

Along with Maurice Ravel, Debussy is frequently associated with Impressionist music, though he himself disliked the term. Besides its sensory content and frequent eschewing of tonality, his music is noted for use of non-traditional scales and chromaticism. Written between 1909 and 1913, the Préludes are two sets of pieces for solo piano, divided into two books of 12 preludes each. Canope is the tenth prelude from Book II, described as "très calme et doucement triste" by the composer, being mysterious, haunting, sparse and desolate. Canopic jars wer

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Lutosławski centenary: The shadows of the night with the LA Phil

The haze of the surreal, somnambulistic nightscape of Witold Lutosławski’s Les espaces du sommeil cast its strange pall over the expanse of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s December 7 concert at Walt Disney Hall with Esa-Pekka Salonen at the podium. It was appropriate – this was the second concert celebrating the centenary of the Polish composer’s birth – but it also seemed to react in unexpected ways that could be jarring, though no less absorbing.

First to Lutosławski’s song-cycle-cum-symphonic-poem which headed the program’s second half. Setting to music the roiling, dream-world words of the French Surrealist Robert Desnos – whose own life is tragically darkened by the shadow of his death in Thereseinstadt – Lutosławski’s music wove a tapestry of sonic imagery that augmented the poet’s words while transcending them. Les espaces du sommeil conjured a starry panorama shattered into broken, glittering shards; then jumbled and refit

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Sleevenote:

Disc 1:

1. Erik SatieVexations [detail] 3.09

Visionary French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) is today regarded as a keynote modernist composer. As well as influencing contemporaries such as Debussy and Ravel, his tendency towards simplicity and repetition continue to inform modern avant-garde genres such as minimalism and ambient. Satie was, according to Surrealist photographer Man Ray, 'the only musician who had eyes.' Written in 1893, the extraordinary score for Vexations is just three lines long, yet a complete performance (840 repetitions) may last for anything between 14 and 28 hours. The composer's typically eccentric instruction ('To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities') affords the piece legendary status in the annals of experimental music. Three decades later Satie would flirt with Paris Dada, but broke with the emerging Surrealist cabal, this despite the fact that Vexations prefigures certain dreamlike Surrealist ideas. The work was