We place emotions with the mediums we have. A photographer has light. A dancer has the body. A sculptor has matter. But there is one medium we all share: the language we speak.
Each language carries an entire world inside it, its sounds, its culture, its own way of telling the real and the invisible. Some emotions exist only in the languages that gave them birth.
Portuguese invented a word, saudade, to name a soft nostalgia, the feeling of absence of someone or something you loved, whose trace keeps vibrating inside you. When Elis Regina sings O Que Tinha De Ser, something passes through the voice that goes beyond the text. It is the language itself that trembles, with its open vowels and its melancholic sweetness.
When Fairuz sings Wahdon, Arabic makes every syllable resonate like a call sent from very far away. The language carries a depth that seems to connect the one who speaks to something greater than themselves. When Ana Belén sings Lía, Spanish burns. When Brel sings Ne me quitte pas, French allows you to beg while keeping dignity. When Melody Gardot sings Burying My Troubles, English goes straight to the point, and breaks us without detours.
Each language opens doors the others do not know. And each artist, by choosing their own, also chooses what they will be able to say, and what will remain unreachable.
And then there is music without words.
Rachmaninov wrote his Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14, for a voice that pronounces no words. From beginning to end, the singer holds a single vowel. Without text, the piece tells love, regret, hope, farewell.
From my piano, I can say what exists before sentences, before explanations. I can say what I carry in my heart without removing the shyness that covers it. I protect myself while revealing everything.
There is a piece on my next album, MOVIE, that speaks love words, promises we keep hidden out of modesty. Words too heavy to carry alone, and yet impossible to say out loud. They could frighten. They could put us in danger.
Come With Me Tonight is track 16 on MOVIE. A solo piano piece. A romantic invitation to an adventure we do not dare to formulate with our voice. The piece keeps swinging between light and melancholy, like the mind when you hope for something with all your strength, and fear it will not happen. You no longer know where to stand. Out of love, you hope. Out of love, you worry. The melody moves forward like a hand extended in the dark. It translates that balance between what you could give the other, and the fear that the invitation will not be answered, that it will not be said at the right moment, that it will not be received the way it should.
The end of the piece is nostalgia, the fear of never living what would be so beautiful. Something that can only be felt by sharing it with the one you love.
On April 17, 2026, when it is in your hands, I wonder if you will hear what I meant to tell, or if a completely different story will be born inside you.
Sincerely,
Sofiane Pamart
✨ Lire cette publication en français ici → Piano Scenes (FR)
I can’t help but being in awe of these intricate texts carefully woven!