Charlotte Sohy – Quatre pièces romantiques – Sheet music

Charlotte Sohy composed the Four Romantic Pieces in Paris in 1944. In the account of her life that she wrote for her children and descendants (born and still to be born as she wrote in the introduction), she describes the long trip from Paris to Perros-Guirec, lasting from July to September 1944. The following excerpt describes the situation just before they left Paris: “The daily battle to obtain food is over: there is nothing left to buy. We have used up all our provisions. We are eating our last dish of beans in the morning and our last pasta in the evening; we are truly hungry and
impressively thin.” (Charlotte Sohy: The Tribulations of Charlotte and Marcel in 1944)

One may wonder whether she wrote these romantic pieces in the hope of exorcising the omnipresent fear… or perhaps to forget the ever-present hunger. In one minute and twenty seconds, The Rivulet — nostalgic and motionless — throws forth a continuous series of quavers, symbols of the flowing water, that never ceases until the final chord. As for the Waltz, it is light yet deeply sensitive. The central part, marked “Animated”, creates a contrast by a change of tempo, after which the piece returns to its first part. The Lullaby, slow and aquatic, is based on an unmoving left hand with
a continual repeated E that lasts until the final note. Finally, the Allegretto Romance without Words is calm and peaceful at first, without giving the slightest hint of the ternary central movement that suddenly comes, in a not-so-moderate moderato, a return to the sources of the tormented writing so dear to Charlotte Sohy. The Romance closes as it opened, peaceful and nostalgic.