Water Pieces: An Online Piano Concert

I know this whole idea of an online concert is kind of weird, but I say why not! As a pianist, we spend long hours in front of a piano learning whatever is next on our list of things we want to master (I can tell you this is an inexhaustible list!) Usually these efforts are put forth for various performances and competitions which give us a deadline and help motivate us to learn new things. But what do you do when you're all done with performances and competitions? I thought, what better way to keep this tradition of learning/performing up with online piano concerts! 

For my first online piano concert I decided to have a theme of Water related pieces including the following selection:

1. Jeux D'eau - Maurice Ravel
2. Reflets Dans l'Eau from Images - Claude Debussy
3. Online from Gaspard de la Nuit - Maurice Ravel

Included in the collection is a commentary from me about my selection. BTW, the commentary video makes me laugh because I sound like a nervous zit-faced adolescent boy at first. 

Opening comments from Dennis

Jeux d'Eau by Maurice Ravel

"River god laughing as the water tickles him..." This excerpt from Henri de Régnier's Cité des Eaux is what Ravel used as a template of imagination to compose this piece.

Reflets Dans l'Eau from Images by Claude Debussy

Ondine from Gaspard de la Nuit by Maurice Ravel

Below is the poem written by Aloysius Bertrand in which Ondine was composed

"Listen! listen! it’s me, it’s Ondine who brushes with these drops of water the resonant diamonds of your window lit by the gloomy moon-light; and there in her silken robe is the lady of the manor contemplating from her balcony the lovely star-bright night and the beautiful sleeping lake.

"Each ripple is a 'child of the waves' swimming with the current, each current is a path winding towards my palace, and my palace is built fluid, at the bottom of the lake, in the triangle of fire earth and air.

"Listen! -Listen! – my father strikes the croaking water with a branch of green alder, and my sisters caress with their arms of foam the cool islands of herbs, water lilies and gladioli, or make fun of their sickly, bearded willow that is fishing with rod and line."

Having murmured her song, she begged me to accept her ring on my finger, so that I would be the husband of an Ondine, and to visit her palace with her, so that I would be king of the lakes. And since I replied that I loved a mortal woman, she wept a few tears, sulking and peevish, then broke into laughter, and vanished in showers of rain that drizzled white across my blue window pane.

I'm not exactly sure how this is suppose to work, but I hope everyone enjoys my first online concert. My next concert, currently in the works, will be some rare selections of Ernő Dohnányi never performed repertoire so looking forward to that!