There are countless stories of knights and princesses falling in love and living happily ever after, however, those stories of fantasy and love that end poorly seem to be forgotten. Marie de France put countless Lais into written poems and the ones that fail, end because they lack something necessary for love to flourish. I learned to play this piece about a year and half ago. It’s by Ravel and called pavane pour une infante défunte, which roughly translates to a pavane for a dead princess. The princess struggles being wed to a man in another country and feels so isolated and betrayed by love that she dies. The song conjures for me intense images, the story of princess is so well captured within the music and I wanted to further that with a landscape of sounds that support the piece. I added in rain and creaking wood, I also left in the thump of each pedal switch and each pressed down key. I hope to convey an acoustic, dreary scene, one where a princess would be able to look out from her tall tower onto the plaines and ocean below her and feel lost because of love.