Mel Bonis: Gai Printemps, Impromptu, (from 5 pièces pour piano, Op.11)

Way before the Spice Girls, here was another Mel B - Mélanie Bonis (1858-1937) , a French composer who also shortened her name - presumably so that attention would not be drawn to the fact that she was a woman. She was a protégé of César Franck, and attended the Paris Conservatoire. She had a very turbulent private life, being forced by her family to abandon her lover for a much older widower. Bonis had an illegitimate daughter with her first lover whose true parentage was hidden for many years, and who fell in love (in ignorance of it) with her half brother. She (Bonis) wrote songs, and piano and chamber music. This piece, from 1889, shows a sophisticated harmonic sensibility. The title translates (carefully - for the 21st century) as &Spring'. My thumbnail features part of a photo of Highdown Gardens, near Worthing, which I took in April 2007. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Played by Phillip Sear