François-Alfred Delobbe | Genre painter

François-Alfred Delobbe, (13 October 1835, Paris - 10 February 1920, Paris) was a French painter in the Naturalist style.

He was a student of Thomas Couture and William Bouguereau at the École des Beaux-arts, where he had been admitted at the age of sixteen, and had his debut at the Salon in 1861 with a portrait of his mother.

Claude Debussy | Arabesque No. 2. | Allegretto scherzando

The second arabesque in G major is noticeably quicker and more lively in tempo.

It opens with left hand chords and right hand trills.

The piece makes several transpositions and explores a lower register of the piano.

Again notable is a hint of the pentatonic scale.

It closes in a similar fashion to the first arabesque.

Claude Monet | Flower Beds at Vétheuil | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Sidney Richard Percy | Angera Maggiore, 1866

This exquisite painting, completed in 1866, captures the tranquil beauty of Lago Maggiore, located in Northern Italy.

In "Angera, Maggiore", Sidney Richard Percy (British landscape painter of the Victorian era, 1822-1886) portrays a serene moment alongside the shimmering waters of the lake.

The scene is set against a backdrop of majestic mountains and lush, verdant terrains that draw the eye towards the horizon.

Offenbach's Can-can | The scandalous Moulin Rouge's dance

The French Cancan dance is an eight-minute performance facing the audience, during which dancers measuring 5’7” tall lead the dance to a piece of music by German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880).

It’s an art that requires Parisian cabaret dancers to have balance, flexibility, acrobatic ability and rhythm.

They have to be able to do the splits and perform impressive moves like the “port d’armes”, the “cathedral” and the “military salute”.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec | At the Moulin Rouge, the Dance, 1889-90 | Philadelphia Museum of Art

Johann Sebastian Bach | The Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 846

The Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 846, is a keyboard composition written by German composer and musician of the late Baroque period Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).

It is the first prelude and fugue in the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, a series of 48 preludes and fugues by the composer.

An early version of the prelude, BWV 846A, is found in the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.

Francis Sydney Muschamp (British, 1851-1929) | A musical interlude