Courtauld Gallery - Paul Cézanne 

Lac d'Annecy 

 

This piece imagines a fantasy-like walk through nature, moving through forest paths and around a lake. The music unfolds as a circular journey, gradually bringing the listener almost back to where it began, as if tracing a full path around the lake.

 

Two contrasting themes guide the experience: a calm, evocative, and slightly cheeky melody played by the flute, and a more mysterious, inward-looking theme introduced by the viola. As these ideas return and transform, they suggest shifting viewpoints in the landscape—moments of playfulness, shadow, and discovery—before the music settles into a sense of arrival.