24 NOTTURNO Szymanowski composed La Berceuse d’Aïtacho Enia in 1925. What does that mysterious title mean? Eva Zavaro: Aïtacho Enia is the Basque name of a villa in Saint-Jean-de-Luz where Szymanowski stayed that year. Exhausted by work and his hectic social life, he went there to rest. To thank his hostess, the American philanthropist Dorothy Jordan Robinson, he presented her with this lullaby, which is dedicated to her. I wanted to show a more modernist, grittier side to his style, in contrast to Fauré’s Berceuse, which is all sweetness and tenderness. Clément Lefebvre: This lullaby diffuses an unsettling, troubled, almost nightmarish glimmer. I wouldn’t choose it to put my children to sleep! It is in no way soothing, contrary to the claims of its composer, who presented it as a ‘pretty piece, full of charm and simplicity’. The texture is stark, stripped down. The ending, a sort of hymn, brings a serenity that has been absent up to that point.
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