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“The Romantic French Prelude as Reverie”: Acclaimed Italian fortepianist Stefania Neonato presents a recital featuring preludes by Charles Alkan and Claude Debussy. 

About ten years after the appearance of Frédéric Chopin Préludes Op. 28, Alkan published his 25 Préludes in 1847, with the peculiar double destination “for piano or organ”. Church organist and piano virtuoso himself, Alkan explored with these pieces diverse sound worlds while expanding a genre that had moved with Chopin quickly away from the free-improvisatory-introductory short piece to a well-thought character piece. In the 25 July 1847 edition of the Revue et Gazette musicale Paris, Joseph Fétis advised that virtuosity won’t be found in Alkan’s Op.31, being he a man of “thought and sentiment”. According to Fétis, "His Préludes are reveries, that conceal a very well thought-out and accomplished art form under the appearance of carelessness.” 

This description can be well applied to the later Debussy Préludes, where the (apparent) extemporaneity of their conception is underlined both by the suggested characters of the music - creatures of the magic world, personifications of natural elements, impressions on the verge of realistic happenings - and by the proposed titles, printed only at the end of each piece. Between 1898 and 1913, Mélanie Bonis, fellow student with Claude Debussy at the Paris Conservatoire, wrote several pieces, collected now under the title Femmes de Légende . These character-pieces  -some of them could be well called “Préludes”, are inspired by female figures of history and legends. The link between Bonis' works and Debussy’s appears to be self-evident while a red thread with Alkan and the Romantic French Prélude will be suggested by the unfolding of the music.  

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