Belle de nuit – Chatting to Emmanuel Despax about 'Après un rêve'

Some "concept" albums can seem a little contrived – with themes not so much neatly interwoven as crudely welded onto one another. Not so Emmanuel Despax's new album Après un rêve, which draws together its three main ideas so naturally that it seems as if the album must have sprung from Despax's mind fully formed.

A poetic legacy from his music-loving grandfather meets Emmanuel's own interest in the refined music of the French belle époque (from about the mid-1870s until 1914, when Europe changed forever), all seen through the lens of evening and night-time – or perhaps, as Emmanuel suggests, seen through the bottom of a glass of fine wine.

We talk about the music, the poetry, the chicken-and-egg question of which came first, and how Emmanuel prepares these pieces for performance – but we start with a little leçon in pronunciation...

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