Warm and Tender

Music Some of the best moments during the proms are when an encore appears from seemingly nowhere and is sometimes almost upstages the rest of the concert. It happened tonight during Prom 19. Strauss's Macbeth and Nielsen's Symphony No.4, 'The Inextinguishable' were clearly big hitters but the best moment for me was during the applause when the Radio 3 announcer said, 'I think we're getting some more music' and the conductor Mark Elder told a story which is helpfully paraphrased at this Australian Radio website:

"During the war years a Parisian coal merchant managed to supply (or divert) scarce supplies of fuel to the household of the sick composer who was slowly dying of cancer. As a thank you, Debussy wrote him this nostalgic little piece in 1917."

It's called Les soirs illumin's par l'ardeur du charbon or to give its English translation Evenings lit by glowing coals -- it's an elegy to the thing that's been keeping him warm during his sickness and although you'd expect it to be a mournful peace to these ears it's filled with hope, especially in the orchestral translation which got its World Premiere tonight). Literally, quietly, made my day.