NOSPR / Tsokanou / Colli / The lost treasure - NOSPR

For French music, the premature death of Lili Boulanger, the famous Nadia’s sister, was a loss of a great treasure. D'un Matin de Printemps is truly wonderful with its narrative full of energy and sensuality, magnetic with the timbres shimmering in the light of the rising sun, and gripping with its finely designed instrumentation.

In the Menuet antique, in turn, an echo of eras gone by can be heard very clearly, while “the trio features some thing most amazingly delicate and honest, with no trace of commonness whatsoever”, as Ravel’s biographer, Vladimir Jankélévitch, put it. The Sorcerer's Apprentice – with the characteristic bassoon broom theme – was immortalised not only thanks to Paul Dukas’ phenomenal music: the scherzo can be heard in the soundtrack for Walt Disney’s 1940 Fantasia. Mozart’s KV 467 also lives a cinematic life of its own – the concerto was used in Elvira Madigan, directed by Bo Widerberg.

Agnieszka Nowok-Zych