Black and White Op. 40

The title Black and White refers to an unusual use of the keyboard : the left hand plays exclusively on the black keys while the right hand is used only for white keys.

This distribution of keys into two separate keyboards allows the superimposition of two different melodic scales, creating an original soundtrack. The work is characterized by a highly organized musical discourse which nevertheless exudes freedom and even improvisation.

In a few sentences without frills, the Prelude familiarizes us with the particular sound world resulting from the meeting of these two foreign melodic scales with each other. The brief episode with pedal that ends it introduces a more insistent rhetoric, more narrative of the centerpiece of the work, Intermezzo, whose nostalgic poetry reminds us of the largest Brahmsian intermezzi.

Finally, the beautiful bells dialogue of the Postlude strikes with a mysterious and strange atmosphere where the ritual character of colorful bells alternates with more serious resonances full of reminiscences.