Madame Bovary and the music
"She gave up music. What was the point of playing? Who heard her? Since, after all, she would never, in a velvet dress with short sleeves, strike the ivory keys of an Érard grand piano in a concert and feel a murmur of admiration wafting around her like a breeze, it was not worth her while to bore herself with practice." In Gustave Flaubert's literary masterpiece Madame Bovary, which tells of the fate of Emma Rouault, who, worn down by her unhappy marriage to country doctor Charles Bovary, becomes entangled in several affairs, sinks herself and her family into debt, and finally knows no way out other than suicide, music and the related question of the position of women in the 19th century play a central role. Together with the famous Linz-born actress Sophie Rois, the French pianist David Kadouch follows in the footsteps of this legendary literary figure by playing music that Madame Bovary heard, or at least could have heard, during her tragically short life. In doing so, he not only opens up unusual perspectives on the story of the classic novel, but also unearths veritable pianistic gems by unjustly seldom-performed female composers alongside well-known piano works.
Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
Excerpts from Madame Bovary. Morals in the Province (1856)
interwoven with piano music by Louise Farrenc (1804-1875), Fanny Hensel (1805-1847), Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), Franz Liszt (1811-1886), Clara Schumann (1819-1896), Pauline Viardot-García (1821-1910), Léo Delibes (1836-1891)/Ernst von Dohnányi (1877-1960)
Sophie Rois | Narrator
David Kadouch | Piano