Frédéric Chopin: Waltz in D-Flat Major, Op. 64, No. 1 (Valse minute, or valse du petit chien [Minute Waltz, or Waltz of the Little Dog])
Frédéric Chopin: Nocturne No. 20 in C-Sharp Minor
Maurice Ravel: Ondine from Gaspard de la nuit : Trois poèmes pour piano d’après Aloysius Bertrand
Sergei Prokofiev: Dance of the Knights (Montagues and Capulets) from Romeo and Juliet
Frédéric Chopin: Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52
Rebecca Chaillot: Pianist
After a promising kick-off of my summer 2025 musical season with the Saoû Chante Mozart festival and Schumann a little while ago, and some fun times going back to beloved familiar places and discovering new ones in the Dieulefit area, I turned my attention to a fairly recent and extremely exciting local source of high-quality live music, which my mom discovered last year and has been looking forward to sharing with me ever since.
About six years ago, eminent pianist, among many other hats, Rebecca Chaillot decided to put down some roots in the tiny village of Colonzelle, where she restored a decrepit but spacious stone house for herself and her four pianos, and the “petit palais de Chaillot” was born. Even better, it soon became home to intimate pay-what-you-can concerts in the upstairs concert room or the courtyard, depending on the weather, for the lucky few in the know.
While perusing the message Chaillot had sent to her email distribution list earlier last week, I spotted the Thursday’s and Friday’s program, which was a piano recital including works by Bach, Chopin and Ravel performed by the woman herself, so on Friday, my mom and I grabbed our still visiting friend Vittorio and headed to Colonzelle for the 7:00 PM starting time, just as some strong winds were serendipitously chasing away some threatening clouds.
Lo and behold, at some point we faced the same hurdle as we did during our trip to our last concert, which was a closed street and no clear alternative, due to an overturned truck this time. Undeterred, we quickly found our way around, catching a glimpse of the historic tower of Chamaret in the process, and finally settled in the cool in so many ways courtyard, where our goings-on were carefully supervised by the friendly tabby and white house cat.
Eventually, Rebecca Caillot, the lady of the house and our entertainer for the evening, welcomed us and introduced the first piece, Bach’s legendary Goldberg Variations, specifying that the entire set lasting about one and a half hour, she would play the first ten variations, and then the final Aria da capo. She also warned us that the bells of the church next door would temporarily be joining her at 7:10 PM, just as they unceremoniously informed us that it was 7:00 PM.
And so it went. Right as we were happily getting in the mood of Bach’s prodigiously exacting intricacies, the faithful were called loudly and extensively for the Vespers while Chaillot kept cool and carried on. And then we were fully back to Bach again, except for the very few cars zooming by outside the distant entrance gates, a slight frustration that could easily be ignored once the magic of the music operated at full power.
Then we left German Baroque to go bask in French Romanticism with two popular hits by Chopin, starting with the “Valse minute” (Minute Waltz), also known as “Valse du petit chien” (Waltz of the Little Dog), which was reputedly inspired by Chopin’s famous paramour George Sand’s dog Marquis, whom he apparently loved at least as much as his owner. Short and sweet, this delightful little vignette further lifted everybody’s spirits.
The second Chopin classic was his beloved Nocturne No. 20 in C-Sharp Minor, which he composed at the astonishingly young age of 18 as he was quickly and hopelessly falling in love with a fellow student at the music academy that is now called the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. And in fact, there was no denying the depth and intensity of his feelings as we were listening to their exquisite description with abated breath.
We stayed in France but moved on in time with Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, and more particularly “Ondine”, a not so well-known work inspired by Aloysius Bertrand’s poem dedicated to a half-angel half-demon water nymph who is trying to seduce the listener and take him to her kingdom at the bottom of a lake. An exceptionally captivating composition in its enchanting evocation of shimmering water and subtle seduction, it is also a notoriously challenging obstacle course even for the most accomplished pianists. Luckily, we just had the right virtuoso for the job on Friday evening, and our underwater journey went, well, swimmingly.
Unannounced on the published program, the following piece was for me the instant highlight of the concert, not only because I’ve always had a soft spot for the iconic “Dance of the Knights” from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, a relentlessly dynamite ballet score composed by a Russian about an Italian story written by an Englishman, but also because hearing the drastically stripped down but still tremendously eloquent version for piano we were served on Friday evening (Isn’t that deliciously ominous pulsating brass theme the most badass earworm ever?) was a total blast.
We lastly went back to Chopin with his Ballade No. 4, his longest and, arguably, his most technically difficult and most emotionally rewarding. Unless the other three, which unfold in an essentially straightforward fashion, the fourth has a more complex structure, which he deftly infused with just the right amount of poetry and lyricism. Chaillot clearly understood all that and took us through Chopin’s brilliant take on life with much proficiency, dedication and gusto, wrapping our wonderful music-filled hour with a truly memorable party favor.
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