Claude Debussy was a key figure in the turn of the century French music scene which, at the time, was just throwing off its German fetters. Breaking with Wagner’s influence, he experimented with yet unknown soft sounds and tones. This par excellence Gaelic instrument centered rhapsody was not an original idea by him, but rather the product of a commission. As Debussy wasn’t particularly interested in the saxophone, the piece remained a fragment and was only completed after his death. Maurice Ravel, the turn of the century’s other significant French composer, wasn’t as adamant as Debussy about renouncing German motifs. He created the Valses nobles et sentimentales (Noble and Sentimental Waltzes) in the style of Schubertian ideals; later depicting the genre’s birth, ascent and decline in his La valse titled work, interpreted by many as a metaphor for a bygone global order shattered by World War I. Bach and the motifs of the second Viennese school are reflected in Frank Martin’s unique concerto, wherein the harp, harpsichord and piano trio collaborate with the spatially separated string section.