A beautiful night

For this second evening alone in its company, the Dijon Opera Choir leaves the salons and their delicate fragrances for wide open nature and the sublime and nostalgic perfumes of romantic night. This beautiful night begins with Brahms’ O schöne Nacht, an effusion of pure lyricism in which the four voices sing their delight before uniting into a canticle on the act of grace. The Liebeslieder are a thinly veiled homage to the Vienna where the composer made his home. Crossing the ternary rhythms of Schubert’s Ländler, which Brahms admired, and those of the waltzes of Strauss, with whom he was a friend, the composer fashions love songs from texts drawn from all the popular European traditions. Lastly, the Zigeunerlieder, a late score from his final years, deploy a thundering, torn and incandescent passion, piercing as never before the Gypsy pride and grandeur of character.