To help you enjoy the music I've chosen to accompany my novel about Berthe Morisot, here's some context about each selection. Click the link to go to the Spotify playlist and listen to each: https://open.spotify.com/user/paulabutterfield/playlist/4WXPexpiHJ3U7CSLhzCnfM
1. Tea Picking Dance featuring the koto, a traditional Japanese instrument, signifies the moment when Berthe sees her first Japanese print. The simple image of a woman in the private act of brushing her hair influenced her work ever after.
2. When the Morisot family attends the opening of the opera Don Giovanni, Berthe is absorbed by the story of a father and son who are in love with the same woman. The lyrics to the aria, Non Mi Di Bell'Idol Mio could be describing Berthe's growing attraction to Edouard Manet.
I cruel?
Ah no, my dearest!
It grieves me much to postpone
a bliss we have for long desired…
3. Gioachino Rossini, a neighbor of the Morisots, plays Let's Dance at one of the weekly dinner gatherings Cornelie Morisot institutes to find husbands for her daughters.
4. After the German siege of Paris, Berthe goes to Cherbourg to visit her sister, Edma. The combined joys of seeing her sister again and of being away from the deprivations of Paris come through in her exuberant marine paintings. From Dawn Till Noon on the Sea, from Debussy's La Mer, conveys the wind, the waves, and the freedom Berthe enjoys while perched with her easel overlooking a harbor on the northwestern-most tip of Normandy.
6. It's Berthe's daughter, Julie, who lures her back to painting in the Bos de Boulogne after a period of mourning. There, they come across a concert by Cécile Chaminaud, whose light, charming Etude Symphonique, Opus 28, reminds Berthe of what life has to offer.
7. As Impressionism's popularity wanes, Berthe's friendships with her colleagues grows. She learns that Renoir has a penchant for singing songs from the latest operas, such as this one from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann.
8. Renoir, Monet and Degas stagger down the sidewalk after one of Berthe's weekly dinners singing songs like Nini Peau de Chien, made popular by café concert crooner Aristide Bruant, extolling the charms of a prostitute.
9. At the end of her life, Julie ponders the nature of the relationship between her mother and Edouard Manet. Julie admires the French chic of the new American First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, so I Loved You in Silence, from Camelot, seems an appropriate song to conclude the soundtrack to La Luministe.
