New online concert from Orchestra of the Swan celebrates Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Wind, Sand and Stars concert is available on YouTube on Monday 11 January
Last updated 12th Jan 2021
A brand new concert from Orchestra of the Swan filmed for YouTube telling the story of pilot, poet and write Antoine de Saint-Expery debuts this week, combining familiar music from Ravel, Satie, and Debussy plus new music we're playing on Scala Radio this week.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry will be known to some as the author of The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince). In their second Night Owl concert available online from Monday 11 January, Orchestra of the Swan with Artistic Director David Le Page, capture the daring days of early aviation when to be a pilot was a thing of wonder, in an intrepid voyage with the daring French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
The story of The Little Prince features a young prince who meets a pilot who has crashed in the desert. Although a children's book, the story addresses themes of loneliness, friendship, love, and loss. Since publication in 1943 a year before the author's disappearance, the book has been translated into over 300 languages.
Extracts from the autobiography of the great aviator and author, Wind, Sand and Stars, feature in the Orchestra of the Swan's concert. The extracts are narrated by Graham Padden are combined with music by Debussy, Satie and Ravel, filmed in Stratford Upon Avon in November 2020.
Who was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry?
The pilot, poet, and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry grew up in an impoverished aristocratic family before qualifying as a military pilot and establishing airmail routes around the world. His seminal novella Le Petit Prince drew on his experiences as a pilot, including his 1935 near-death plane crash and rescue from the Saharan desert. Saint-Exupéry was declared missing, presumed dead in 1944, following his disappearance from a WWII military reconnaissance mission; the wreckage of his plane only came to light sixty years later following the discovery of his identity bracelet.
"Flying is not the point. The aeroplane is a means, not an end. It is not for the plane that we risk our lives. … But through the plane we can leave the cities and the accountants, and find a truth that farmers know. We are in contact with the wind, with the stars, with the night, with the sand, with the sea. We try to outwit the forces of nature. … I have no regrets. I've gambled and I've lost...But at least I have breathed the wind of the sea."
What music features in Wind, Sand and Stars?
Ravel Introduction and Allegro
Ravel String Quartet (2nd movement)
Satie Gnossienne 1 arr. Le Page
Trenet La Mer arr. Le Page/Turner
Ravel Introduction and Allegro
Le Page Snow Falling on Cedars
Debussy Danse sacrée
Saint-Saëns Fantasie
Debussy The Girl with the Flaxen Hair
Ravel String Quartet (2nd movement)
Le Page Cinderella
Piazzolla Oblivion arr. Garcia
Words by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
with Graham Padden narrator
How to watch Wind, Sand and Stars from the Orchestra of the Swan
Wind, Sand and Stars is available to stream from Monday 11 January 2021 at 20:00. Tickets are available from orchestraoftheswan.org and cost £10.