Maurice Ravel
Le Tombeau de Couperin

Sergei Prokofiev
Piano Concerto No. 5 in G major, Op. 55

Francis Poulenc
Sinfonietta

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet – piano
Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava
Andris Poga – conductor

Maurice Ravel’s suite Le Tombeau de Couperin, written between 1914 and 1917, was originally conceived as a six-movement piano work. In 1919, Ravel selected four movements and arranged them for orchestra. The open dialogue between the Baroque era and Ravel’s own time remains a source of enduring freshness.

In 1911, Sergei Prokofiev had enough thematic material for three separate piano concertos, and twenty years later he had accumulated musical ideas for two more. In 1932, he incorporated many of his lively and energetic ideas into his Piano Concerto No. 5, one of the last works he composed in Western Europe before returning to the Soviet Union. In its musical design, the piece breaks with established conventions and rules. Instead of the traditional three movements, it consists of five short sections filled with distinctive music brimming with biting sarcasm and irony, and dazzling with unconventional virtuosity.

Light, witty, and elegant—these words succinctly characterize the music of the French composer Francis Poulenc. As a member of the legendary Parisian artistic group Les Six, he embraced refined simplicity, neoclassicism, jazz, and elements of music hall. Poulenc’s Sinfonietta, composed in 1947 on commission from the BBC, is equally full of charm. Nothing more need be added, for as the composer once reportedly said: “Do not analyze my music—love it!”