Claude Debussy concert
A performance of Debussy’s composition, Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon (Evenings Lit by the Burning Coals, 1917), by students from the Cultural School in Bergen.
In the winter of 1917, towards the end of his life, the composer Claude Debussy found himself in dire straits. Not only had he endured cancer, he also faced extreme poverty. That winter was among the coldest ever experienced in France, which was undergoing a severe coal shortage due to Germany’s wartime occupation of the east. Debussy, who was already requesting advances from his publisher, and too cold to even play the piano, was now driven literally to beg for coal in order for his family to survive the brutal winter.
Debussy encountered a coal vendor named Monsieur Croquin. After a heated exchange marked by intense negotiation, Debussy wrote an entirely new musical composition, Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon (Evenings Lit by the Burning Coals), which he finished in March 1917 and gave to Croquin, in return receiving a bag of coal.
The composition was not publicly known before Debussy´s handwritten manuscript appeared in an auction in 2001. The history behind the composition is told through various facsimiles and original notes, which is appears as a part of the exhibition around “The Coalman” at Gyldenpris Kunsthall. The exhibition is one of seven exhibitions dedicated each to one character as part of the contemporary art triennial, Bergen Assembly 2022. All exhibitions are open from 8th September until 6th November.
We are very please that the piano students from Bergen cultural school´s (Bergen Kulturskole) in-depth program for Musical specialisation, have wished to contribute towards this project through solitary interpretation and practicing of the play. This interpretations will be performed at Gyldenpris Kunsthall, Thursday 22th September, 19:00. The exhibition will be open before the concert, where there will also be a simple café service inside the exhibition hall.
Free entry!
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