“Take a few musicians, if you let them go with their natural inclination, they will put on a show and tell you a great story, to make you dream. But if the idea had just scared you? Then it would no longer be a dream but a nightmare! A nightmare populated by shadows and noises that all children experience someday. And if they can't fall asleep without one of these always a little frightening tales, then they know very well that the fears of the night will make them forget those of the day, only to wake up happy, with a strange music in their hearts." Caroline Mutel
The story follows the tale of "The Town Musicians of Bremen" by the Brothers Grimm.
“A certain man had a donkey that had served him faithfully for many long years, but whose strength was so far gone that at last he was quite unfit for work. So his master began to consider how much he could make of the donkey’s skin, but the beast, perceiving that no good wind was blowing, ran away along the road to Bremen. ‘There’, thought he, ‘I can be town musician.’..."
Throughout the show, instrumental and vocal pieces of music drawn mainly from the German repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries (with works such as "Representative Sonata" and "Battalia" by H.I. Biber or "Capriccio Stravagante" by Farina) punctuate the narration of the tale. A few stylistic surprises, with “unexpected” works and older or contemporary music, punctuate the journey and reveal this history known to all in a lively and modern way. The show is supported by shadows designed in an original way for the show by Philippe Beau, edited and broadcasted on video by Xavier Mortimer.
