Orchestre Victor Hugo

Ravel’s art, that mix of assumed classicism and surprising, at times paroxysmic audacity, possesses its own style of seduction, which is instantly recognizable: as can be seen in the three timeless masterpieces performed by the Orchestre Victor Hugo.

What can be said about Maurice Ravel, other than that his art, both chaste yet imbued with unforgettable and intensely modern melodies, incarnates the very essence of French music? A brilliant orchestrator, Ravel manages like no other to magnify instrumental themes, the flow of amazing alloys, opposing textures, transparencies, and masses. Characterized by Claude Levi-Strauss as a "fugue à plat", the illustrious Bolero deploys its reptilian and obsessive melodies, while La Valse, paying homage to Schubert and Johann Strauss, engages the orchestra in a vertiginous modernist kaleidoscope. The illustrious Concerto en sol, lastly, manages to merge an imaginary classicism with jazz accents that call to mind Gershwin. His prodigious energy, which explodes in the exhilarating "perpetuum mobile" of the Finale, gives way nonetheless to the emotion of the Adagio, where the spirit of Mozart is reborn in a sublime, hypnotic and wrenching melody.

Orchestre Victor Hugo
Musical director Jean-François Verdier
Piano Natacha Kudritskaya

Maurice Ravel
Une Barque sur l’océan
Concerto pour piano en sol majeur
La Valse
Le Boléro