Music of Sea and Story: La mer and Shéhérazade

Edward Gardner, conductor
Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano

MENDELSSOHN: Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op. 27
TCHAIKOVSKY: The Tempest Fantasy-Overture, Op. 18
RAVEL: Shéhérazade
DEBUSSY: La mer

British conductor Edward Gardner leads a vivid, ocean themed program exploring humanity’s eternal fascination with the sea – its stillness, storms, and mystery.

Mendelssohn’s youthful concert overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, inspired by Goethe’s poem, captures the peril of a ship becalmed with no wind to move it – an image of both physical and spiritual stagnation. A breath of air stirs, the sails fill, and the music surges with joyful momentum toward open waters.

Tchaikovsky’s The Tempest, after Shakespeare, transforms Prospero’s magical island into a world of tempest and tenderness, combining tempestuous storms with luminous love music for Miranda and Ferdinand before peace is restored.

Ravel’s sumptuous Shéhérazade, based on orientalist poems, evokes exotic voyages and sensual dreamscapes through glowing orchestral color and the voice’s seductive allure.

Debussy’s La mer, perhaps the most famous musical portrait of the sea, closes the program. Its three movements – From Dawn to Noon on the Sea, Play of the Waves, and Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea – trace the ocean’s transformations from calm to tempest and serenity again. For Debussy, the sea becomes both natural and human – vast, unpredictable, and deeply emotional.