Five Easy Pieces (Milo Rau) about how we deal with the emotional shock and pain caused by an extremely upsetting experience. Milo Rau's "Five Easy Pieces" is also a reflection on theatre. The title "Five Easy Pieces" refers to a series of exercises that Igor Stravinsky composed in 1917 in order to teach children how to play the piano, and that were also called "Five Easy Pieces". The theatre production of Milo Rau is made up of five monologues, each offering a different perspective on how children learn to act and how they learn to grow up. Milo Rau sees his performances as "Lehrstücke", in
Five Easy Pieces (Stravinsky) the Napolitan style. Some musicians, as fellow pianist Paul Jacobs, have acknowledged an indirect reference (or "misquotation", as Jacobs said) to the popular song "Funiculì, Funiculà". Finally, the fifth movement, "Galop", tries to resemble a French Can-can and is based on sketches that were first conceived when composing the "Three Easy Pieces". The first four movements were reworked, arranged for small orchestra, and published as Suite No. 1. However, he decided to leave "Galop" out and arranged it for small orchestra for Suite No. 2, possibly taking into account when it was first conceived. Suite No. 1 was published in