Belle Époque Gala

The Belle Époque was artistically one of the richest periods in French history. In music, post-Romanticism, still marked by a feverish sentimentality, coexisted with Symbolism, of which Debussy was the figurehead, and with an undying passion for the colours and the sensuality of the Orient. This programme brings together all of those influences, without omitting either sacred inspiration or the enduring craze for instrumental virtuosity. Dubois’s Fantasietta is a curious example, a kind of late concerto grosso, whose miniaturism heralded the neo-Classicism that was to come. Alongside those purely instrumental pieces, Marie-Nicole Lemieux embraces, with all the warmth of her contralto, mélodies (art songs) with orchestral accompaniment by Saint-Saëns and Massenet that posterity has for all too long kept in the shadows.