Images piano recital by Margaret Legge-Wilkinson

Sunday, December 7 at 3pm. Tickets: $40, $35 members/concession, $20 students, children under 16 free. Bookings: 6240 6701 (Monday to Friday) or at the front desk

Impressions of Paris: Lautrec, Degas, Daumier on exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, features the work of three extraordinary draftsmen-artists who captured Parisian life in an informal, incisively accurate way. In their work we see candid snapshots of dancers, musicians and entertainers, of bar girls, of family outings, of scenes at the racecourse and, particularly with the master caricaturist, Daumier, pursuits with a watery theme.

Canberra composer-pianist Margaret Legge-Wilkinson has put together a program of music by the early 20th-century composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel to reflect the themes of this exhibition. At her concert at the Fairfax Theatre on Sunday, December 7 she will play nine of Debussy's miniature character pieces from Books 1 & 2 of his Preludes and his Images, 1st Series as well as Ravel's Jeux d'eau.

"I feel that some of the Debussy Preludes are very connected to Degas," Legge-Wilkinson says. "They have dance titles from A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The description of Puck's Dance says it all: "capricieux et leger" (whimsical and light) while Fairies are exquisite dancers is "rapide et leger" (quick and light). Puck's Dance

On the gallery walls there are dancers fastening their ballet shoes, adjusting a wayward bodice strap and practising at the barre; in the music you have perfect pictures of the ballet movements.

"The later Daumier sketches were very connected to the theatre," Legge-Wilkinson says. "Some of the Debussy is very witty and one prelude is written about the vaudeville character, General Levine."

"You can hear him in the sudden changes of mood and timing – jokes and juggling," Legge-Wilkinson says. "And the Fireworks Prelude is absolutely fantastic – very visual. You can hear the fireworks exploding and fountains of fire flowing. It's quite wild piano writing and very virtuosic."

Debussy placed the title of each of his preludes at the end of each piece because he wanted a performer to approach each soundscape with fresh ears and not be influenced beforehand by the title he had given it.

The title of Ravel's work, Jeux d'eau, is often translated as "Water Games" and Ravel explained its inspiration as the noise of water and the musical sounds made by sprays of water, cascades and brooks. He wrote on the manuscript a quote from Henri de Regnier which can be translated as "River god laughing as the water tickles him".

Legge-Wilkinson will introduce the pieces that she'll play. "I wish I had more time to play some more Ravel pieces," she says.