- Biography
- Pavane pour une infante défunte
- String Quartet
- Introduction and Allegro
- Daphnis and Chloé Suite No. 2
- La Valse
- Bolero
Biography
Like Debussy, Ravel was brought up in Paris and studied at the Paris Conservatoire.
After a few years he joined the composition class of the eminent composer Gabriel Fauré.
Ravel was prolific and has left us with a fine collection of orchestral, piano, vocal and chamber music.
He, too, had problems in his lifetime.
He served in an ambulance corps at the front in the First World War, but was demobilised owing to ill health in 1917.
Following a serious car accident in 1935, he suffered from an unusual kind of mental paralysis and died two years later after an unsuccessful operation on his brain.
His experiences made him a man of nervous disposition and he was consistently plagued by insomnia, but he was a great socialite and enjoyed being in the company of friends – never happier than when sitting around drinking in bars and cafes.
He loved both gourmet and simple French cooking and meals would always be followed by strong French cigarettes.
Debussy was a great admirer of Ravel’s talent and once said of him that he ‘possessed the finest ear that ever existed’.
Much of Ravel’s music is more direct and immediately dramatic in style than that of Debussy.
Listen to Bolero or La Valse for an extraordinary display of Ravel’s skill in writing for the orchestra, or, better still, go and hear them performed live in the concert hall and you will experience a truly spectacular event.
Both Debussy and Ravel wrote a great deal of music for the piano and, if you are a fan of that instrument and keen on this evocative French style of music, you will find a rich catalogue of varied music from each.
Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit and Miroirs are quite remarkable and are frequently heard on the concert platform today.
They also both wrote one great string quartet each: lovers of chamber music will not be disappointed.
Another favourite is the Introduction and Allegro for flute, harp, clarinet and string quartet, which must rank as being one of the finest examples of French Impressionistic chamber music in the catalogue.
Ravel had to work hard to achieve the recognition he deserved.
In many ways his music is very forward looking and he, like Debussy, has been the source of much inspiration for many composers who have followed.
Pavane pour une infante défunte
1899, Keyboard Works
A ‘pavane’ (or ‘pavan’ in English) is a slow and stately dance from the sixteenth century which can often be found mentioned in Shakespeare. Ravel’s ‘Pavan for a Dead Infanta’ was originally a piano piece, written in 1899, though it was later orchestrated.
(An ‘Infanta’ is the daughter of the Spanish sovereign who is not an heiress to the throne.)
String Quartet
String Quartet: 1st Movement
Chamber Music
Ravel’s String Quartet is beautifully Romantic, the music being full of swells and lulls.
Introduction and Allegro
1906, Chamber Music
Not to be confused with Elgar’s work of the same name, Ravel’s ‘Introduction and Allegro’ is instantly evocative of the sea and travel in general. It is interesting to note that the harp is effectively given a ‘front seat’ in the ensemble.
Daphnis and Chloé Suite No. 2
1909, Ballet
In 1909 the Russian ballet director Serge Diaghilev commissioned Ravel to write the music for a ballet on the story of Daphnis and Chloe, a pastoral romance by the fourth century Greek writer Longus. Ravel readily accepted and produced such an impressive work that Stravinsky, a long-time colleague of Diaghilev’s, was moved to describe it as ‘not only Ravel’s best work, but also one of the most beautiful products of all French music.’
As a ballet, Daphnis and Chloé was never really popular, and it became far more famous for its music, which Ravel described as ‘a great choreographic symphony’. However, the story is classically romantic and tells of the adventures surrounding the love between the two title characters.
The ballet starts with a scene in a meadow by a sacred wood on a bright afternoon, and almost immediately we hear one of the basic themes, this being a soft chant on three horns – often referred to as the Voice of Nature. This chant is then echoed by a wordless, off-stage chorus which crops up time and again throughout the work, almost ‘humanising’ the orchestra. Soon the love theme comes in as a solo horn melody and the story begins.
A group of young men and women are making offerings to the nymphs and among them are Daphnis and Chloe who, as yet, do not know that they love each other. A dancing competition takes place between Daphnis and a shepherd, where the winner receives a kiss from Chloe. Daphnis wins with a light and graceful dance, and the two fall into each other’s arms.
Suddenly, Chloe is captured by pirates and Daphnis faints with grief, only to be woken by the nymphs, who take him to the god Pan, whom Daphnis begs for help. The chorus returns and in the distance we hear fanfares from horns and trumpets until the full orchestra launches us into the camp of the pirates. The pirates dance until Chloe is brought in, her hands tied behind her back. The pirate chief tries to woo Chloe, but Pan appears and takes her away. At this point we return to the wood and a beautiful solo horn announces the sunrise. Daphnis and Chloe are now reunited, but at one point she runs off, only to be lured back by Daphnis’s playing of a pan-pipe, to which she dances. At the end there is a wonderfully joyous scene where the stage is full of lively dancing.
La Valse
1919, Orchestral
In 1906 Ravel became gripped with the idea of writing a symphonic version of a Viennese waltz as a homage to the great waltz writer Johann Strauss II. He planned to call it ‘Wien’ (Vienna), but didn’t start work on it until 1919 when he spent the winter in the south of France. He was very pleased with its progress and wrote to a friend saying:
‘I’m working again at “Wien”. It’s going great guns. I was able to take off at last, and in high gear. I’m waltzing madly!’
However, at this point, a small scandal occurred: Ravel was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government, only to refuse it on the grounds that it was ‘absurd’. Ravel once again wrote to his friend:
‘What an absurd affair! Who could have played this trick on me? . . . And I must finish “Wien” by the end of the month.’
Because the working title was considered untactful in post-World War One Europe, the piece was renamed ‘La Valse’, and was first performed in December 1920.
The music opens with the turbulence of muted double basses while a thudding beat is created by the low notes of harps and the other double basses. Soon we can picture dancing couples as small fragments of a waltz melody begin to emerge, first from a pair of bassoons and then from the strings. A general moodiness seems to dominate until the violins begin to remove their mutes, thereby creating a swell of volume, building to a dazzling climax for the whole orchestra. A trumpet soon comes in with a new waltz melody and, once again, the dance begins to grow increasingly wild and tense until the whole work ends with a final, violent eruption.
Bolero
1928, Orchestral
Ravel’s Bolero was made famous with the British public when Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean skated to victory with a dance routine worked around this march-like piece.
It was a good choice of music for skating as it had originally been commissioned by the beautiful and wealthy Ida Rubenstein in 1928 for her ballet company, where she danced the principal part in a Spanish Inn scene.
The story of the music is a simple one; a woman dances alone on a table surrounded by men who are unable to take their eyes off her. As her dancing becomes wilder, the men become more excited and tense, pounding with their hands on tables and with their feet on the wooden floor. Finally everything gets completely out of hand, knives are drawn and there is a violent pub brawl.
The Bolero is a surprise, as it has no movements or contrasts; it is truly an orchestral ‘piece’, which Ravel described in a letter to the ‘London Daily Telegraph’:
‘I am particularly desirous that there should be no misunderstanding about this work. Before its first performance I issued a warning to the effect that what I had written was a piece . . . consisting wholly of “orchestral tissue without music” – of one very long, gradual crescendo.
There are no contrasts and there is practically no invention save the plan and manner of its execution. The themes are altogether impersonal . . . folk tunes of the usual Spanish-Arabian kind and the orchestral writing is simple . . . throughout. I have carried out exactly what I intended, and it is for the listeners to take it or leave it.’
The music is simply built on a single melody of two sixteen-bar phrases. Two military drums punch out the characteristic bolero rhythm while a flute takes up the melody. This melody is then repeated by a solo clarinet, followed by a solo bassoon and a small clarinet. At the conclusion, the music suddenly changes key to finish off with a sequence of violent discord.