Flagey chez soi: Boris Giltburg

From their home to yours. With ‘Flagey chez soi’ we want to continue to share the joy of music on our feeds during this uncertain time. We asked some musicians who are very close to us, to tell you how they are coping with this crisis and to record a piece of music for you. We look forward to welcoming you back to Flagey when we reopen. Until then, enjoy the music and take care!

Only two months ago we welcomed our artist in residence Boris Giltburg during the Flagey Piano Days. Today he performs the famous Suite bergamasque by Claude Debussy for you from his home!

It makes us look back to when Claude Debussy made his career in Paris. Thanks to the bustling city life in that time, he did not have to go far to find inspiration for his innovative compositions. At the Paris World Fair of 1889, for example, the twenty-six-year-old composer discovered Spanish and Javanese music after which his style changed forever. But his greatest stimulus was his Parisian group of friends with poet Paul Verlaine. It is his poem Clair de lune that influences Debussy to create his famous, baroque-inspired, Suite bergamasque.

Clair de lune 

Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune
Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

Paul Verlaine