Hymne à l'Océan

Océan

To coincide with the United Nations Conference on the Oceans, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice is celebrating the sea by commissioning a new work from Yann Robin: Hymne à l'Océan.

A work for large choir and orchestra, Hymne à l'Océan celebrates the power of nature through one of the four elements, water. The voices of the choir, like Sirens, those half-human, half-animal creatures of mythology, cry out the urgency that is ours. It should be noted that Yann Robin imagined this work along the lines of Ravel's Bolero, whose structure and dramaturgical trajectory it follows. But La Mer is also, of course, one of Debussy's most absolute symphonic masterpieces! It was impossible not to pay tribute to these pioneering pages, in which the French composer translated the thousand and one colours of the sea into music with such genius. In counterpoint, Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2, an 'oceanic' work if ever there was one, will introduce us to one of the young phenomena of the keyboard: Czech pianist Lukáš Vondráček.

Yann Robin Hymne à l'Océan (world premiere, commissioned by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice)
Claude Debussy La Mer
Sergueï Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18