BeNe Guitar Duo – Lisa Denoo & Rolf van Meurs play Un Petit Train de Plaisir by Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868). This comes via BeNe Duo’s YouTube and was recorded at Gitaarsalon Enkhuizen. This is quite a fun piano work from later in Rossini’s life. Keep watching for the english musical descriptions that pop up in the video. The music mimics a number of events or characters on the train journey. As Keith Anderson via Naxos explains:
There is an autobiographical element in Un petit train de plaisir, comico-imitatif (A little pleasure train, comico-imitative). Train journeys had not always proved congenial to Rossini, and here a bell summons the passengers, who climb on board, before the train starts its journey. The satanic whistle blows, the brakes are gently applied and the train arrives in a station, where Parisian beaux hand their girls down from the coaches. The journey continues, but the train comes to grief in a dramatic derailment. There are two casualties, the soul of one flying to heaven and the other down to hell, followed by a funeral march. The heirs express their bitter sorrow in a cheerful Allegro vivace and Rossini ends with the words ‘Tout ceci est plus que naïf c’est vrai’.
