MAURICE RAVEL Born March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées, France; Died December 28, 1937 in Paris

MAURICE RAVEL Born March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées, France; died December 28, 1937 in Paris. Rapsodie Espagnole (1907-1908) PREMIERE OF WORK: Paris, March 15, 1908 Concerts Colonne Edouard Colonne, conductor APPROXIMATE DURATION: 17 minutes INSTRUMENTATION: two piccolos, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, two harps and strings In the years immediately following his failure to win the Prix de Rome in 1905, Ravel enjoyed a burst of creativity probably fueled by his freedom from academic restraints for the first time in his life. In the late summer of 1907, when he first took up the Rapsodie Espagnole, he was bothered by the street noises bombarding his apartment in Paris, and some friends offered him the use of their yacht moored at Valvins. He gladly accepted, and soon took up the life of a recluse, seeing no one except the boat’s gruff but likable captain, with whom he shared his meals. Ravel worked quickly, and he as soon able to return to Paris with the finished score. Rather than a single span of music, the Rapsodie Espagnole is a miniature suite of three dances with a prelude. Ravel described the first section of the Rapsodie, Prélude à la nuit (“Prelude to the Night”), as “voluptuously drowsy and ecstatic.” The Malagueña was based on a genre that was initially a Spanish courting dance which had developed into a virtuoso vehicle for the café singers of the 19th century. The Habanera, whose rhythm is similar to that of the tango, is an orchestration of Ravel’s piano piece of 1895, subtitled in both versions Au pays parfumé que le soleil caresse (“In the fragrant land caressed by the sun”). The Feria (“Festival”) is an exhilarating depiction of a sun-splashed Iberian holiday. .

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Season 2016-2017
23 Season 2016-2017 Thursday, January 26, at 8:00 The Philadelphia Orchestra Friday, January 27, at 2:00 City of Light and Music: The Paris Festival, Week 3 Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor Choong-Jin Chang Viola Berlioz Harold in Italy, Op. 16 I. Harold in the Mountains (Scenes of melancholy, happiness, and joy) II. Pilgrims’ March—Singing of the Evening Hymn III. Serenade of an Abruzzi Mountaineer to his Sweetheart IV. Brigands’ Orgy (Reminiscences of the preceding scenes) Intermission Ravel Alborada del gracioso Ravel Rapsodie espagnole I. Prelude to the Night— II. Malagueña III. Habanera IV. Feria Ravel Bolero This program runs approximately 1 hour, 55 minutes. The January 26 concert is sponsored in memory of Ruth W. Williams. Philadelphia Orchestra concerts are broadcast on WRTI 90.1 FM on Sunday afternoons at 1 PM. Visit WRTI.org to listen live or for more details. 24 Steven Spielberg’s filmE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial has always held a special place in my heart, and I personally think it’s his masterpiece. In looking at it today, it’s as fresh and new as when it was made in 1982. Cars may change, along with hairstyles and clothes … but the performances, particularly by the children and by E.T. himself, are so honest, timeless, and true, that the film absolutely qualifies to be ranked as a classic. What’s particularly special about today’s concert is that we’ll hear one of our great symphony orchestras, The Philadelphia Orchestra, performing the entire score live, along with the complete picture, sound effects, and dialogue.
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A BIOGRAPHY of JOSEPH MAURICE RAVEL by Matthew Dechirico
A BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH MAURICE RAVEL by Matthew DeChirico Joseph Maurice Ravel, who lived from March 1875 to December 1937 was a French composer born in the Basque region of France His mother of Basque-Spanish heritage from Madrid Spain had a strong influence on his life and his music. His father was a Swiss inventor and industrialist from France. Both parents provided a happy and stimulating life for Joseph and his younger brother. His parents encouraged his musical pursuits and sent him at age 14 to the Conservatoire de Paris first as a preparatory student and eventually as a piano major. Although intellectually bright and well read, he was not successful academically even as his musicianship matured. Considered “very gifted” he nevertheless was called “somewhat heedless” in his studies. He failed to meet the requirements of earning a competitive medal and was expelled. He returned three years later studying with Gabriel Faure focusing on composition rather than piano. He was again dismissed for having won neither the fugue nor the composition prize. He remained an auditor with Faure until he left the Conservatoire in 1903. During his years at the Conservatoire, Ravel tried numerous times to win the prestigious Prix de Rome but to no avail: he was probably considered too radical by the conservatives. Ravel’s “String Quartet in F” is now a standard work of chamber music, though at the time it was criticized and found lacking academically. His first significant work, “Habanera” for two pianos was later transcribed into the third movement of his “Rapsodie Espagnole”.
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(MTO 21.1: Stankis, Ravel's ﬁcolor
Volume 21, Number 1, March 2015 Copyright © 2015 Society for Music Theory Maurice Ravel’s “Color Counterpoint” through the Perspective of Japonisme * Jessica E. Stankis NOTE: The examples for the (text-only) PDF version of this item are available online at: http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.15.21.1/mto.15.21.1.stankis.php KEYWORDS: Ravel, texture, color, counterpoint, Japonisme, style japonais, ornament, miniaturism, primary nature, secondary nature ABSTRACT: This article establishes a link between Ravel’s musical textures and the phenomenon of Japonisme. Since the pairing of Ravel and Japonisme is far from obvious, I develop a series of analytical tools that conceptualize an aesthetic orientation called “color counterpoint,” inspired by Ravel’s fascination with Chinese and Japanese art and calligraphy. These tools are then applied to selected textures in Ravel’s “Habanera,” and “Le grillon” (from Histoires naturelles ), and are related to the opening measures of Jeux d’eau and the Sonata for Violin and Cello . Visual and literary Japonisme in France serve as a graphical and historical foundation to illuminate how Ravel’s color counterpoint may have been shaped by East Asian visual imagery. Received August 2014 1. Introduction It’s been given to [Ravel] to bring color back into French music. At first he was taken for an impressionist. For a while he encountered opposition. Not a lot, and not for long. And once he got started, what production! —Léon-Paul Fargue, 1920s (quoted in Beucler 1954 , 53) Don’t you think that it slightly resembles the gardens of Versailles, as well as a Japanese garden? —Ravel describing his Le Belvédère, 1931 (quoted in Orenstein 1990 , 475) In “Japanizing” his garden, Ravel made unusual choices, like his harmonies.
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Ravel, Maurice (1875-1937) by John Louis Digaetani
Ravel, Maurice (1875-1937) by John Louis DiGaetani Encyclopedia Copyright © 2015, glbtq, Inc. Entry Copyright ©2002, glbtq, inc. Reprinted from http://www.glbtq.com Maurice Ravel in 1915. Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and One of France's most distinguished composers, Maurice Ravel was a prolific and Photographs Division. versatile artist who worked in several musical genres, creating stage music (two operas and several ballets), orchestral music, vocal music, chamber music, and piano music. His unique musical language, employing harmonies that are at once ravishing and subtle, made him one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century. Ravel's sexuality has been the subject of intense speculation. Although it is not certain that he was gay, he was rumored to be so. Fiercely protective of his privacy, his most significant emotional relationship seems to have been with his mother. At the same time, however, he embraced a public identity as a cultured dandy, a dapper man-about-town of refined taste and sensibility. A life-long bachelor, Ravel had several significant relationships with men, including one with pianist Ricardo Viñes, a fellow dandy and bachelor, but it is not certain whether these friendships were sexual. He was born Joseph Maurice Ravel on March 7, 1875 at Ciboure, France, near St. Jean de Luz, Basses- Pyrénées, a village close to the French-Spanish border, to a Swiss father and a Basque mother. Ravel's father, who was talented musically, was an engineer. The composer may have inherited from his father the devotion to craftsmanship and meticulous detail that led Igor Stravinsky to describe him as the "Swiss watch-maker of music." Although he was raised in Paris, Ravel was very conscious of his Basque heritage.
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Baur 831792.Pdf (5.768Mb)
Ravel's "Russian" Period: Octatonicism in His Early Works, 1893-1908 Author(s): Steven Baur Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 531-592 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831792 Accessed: 05-05-2016 18:10 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press, American Musicological Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Musicological Society This content downloaded from 129.173.74.49 on Thu, 05 May 2016 18:10:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Ravel's "Russian" Period: Octatonicism in His Early Works, 1893-1908 STEVEN BAUR The most significant writing on the octatonic scale in Western music has taken as a starting point the music of Igor Stravinsky. Arthur Berger introduced the term octatonic in his landmark 1963 article in which he identified the scale as a useful framework for analyzing much of Stravinsky's music. Following Berger, Pieter van den Toorn discussed in greater depth the nature of Stravinsky's octatonic practice, describing the composer's manipula- tions of the harmonic and melodic resources provided by the scale.
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SCMS Repertoire List Through 2021 Winter Festival
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Maurice Ravel: a Catalogue of the Orchestral Music
MAURICE RAVEL: A CATALOGUE OF THE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC 1895/1929: “Menuet antique” for orchestra: 6 minutes 1898: Overture “Sheherazade” 1899/1910: “Pavane pour une infante defunte” for orchestra: 6 minutes 1900: Cantata “Callerhoe” (Lost) “Les Bayaderes” for soprano, chorus and orchestra: 4 minutes “Tout est lumiere” for soprano, chorus and orchestra: 4 minutes 1901: Cantata “Myrrha” for soprano, tenor, baritone and orchestra: 23 minutes 1902: Cantata “Semiramis” (lost) “La nuit” for soprano, chorus and orchestra: 6 minutes Cantata “Alcyone” for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and orchestra: 25 minutes 1903: “Matinee en Provence” for soprano, chorus and orchestra3 minutes Cantata “Alyssa” for soprano, tenor, baritone and orchestra: 25 minutes “Sheherazade” for mezzo-soprano and orchestra: 16 minutes 1904-05/06: “Une barque sur l’ocean” for orchestra: 7 minute 1904-05/18: “Alborada del Gracioso” for orchestra: 7 minutes 1905: “L’Aurore” for tenor, chorus and orchestra: 6 minutes 1905/06: “Noels des jouets” for mezzo-soprano and orchestra: 3 minutes 1907: “Rapsodie espagnole” for orchestra: 15 minutes 1909-10: “Saint Francois d’Assisse” for soloists, chorus and orchestra (lost) 1909-12: Ballet “Daphnis et Chloe”: 56 minutes (and Ballet Suite No.1: 12 minutes; Ballet Suite No.2: 15 minutes) 1908-10/11-12:Ballet “Ma Mere l’Oye”: 28 minutes (and Ballet Suite) 1911/12: “Valses nobles et sentimentales” for orchestra: 16 minutes 1913-14: “Zazpiak-Bat”-Sketches on Basque themes for Piano and Orchestra (unfinished) 1914: Two Hebrew Songs for soprano
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San Diego Symphony Orchestra a Jacobs Masterworks Concert
SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT May 15, 16 and 17, 2015 EMMANUEL CHABRIER España ÉDOUARD LALO Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21 Allegro non troppo Scherzando: Allegro molto Intermezzo: Allegretto non troppo Andante Rondo Ray Chen, violin INTERMISSION MAURICE RAVEL Alborada del gracioso MANUEL DE FALLA Selections from The Three-Cornered Hat Suites 1 and 2 Introduction Dance of the Miller’s Wife (Fandango) The Neighbors Miller’s Dance (Farruca) Final Dance PROGRAM NOTES España EMMANUEL CHABRIER Born January 18, 1841, Ambert, Puy-de-Dôme Died September 13, 1894, Paris Approx. 8 minutes Emmanuel Chabrier was a piano prodigy as a child, and he grew up longing to be a composer. But his parents insisted on a “sensible” career, and Chabrier spent several decades as a minor clerk in the Ministry of the Interior who dabbled in composition in his spare time. Then in the spring of 1882 Chabrier and his wife took a vacation trip to Spain, where – like so many other French composers – he was intoxicated by Spanish music. Back in France, he noted down several characteristic melodies and dance rhythms that he had heard in Andalusia, and from these he fashioned what he called a fantasia for solo piano. When the conductor Charles Lamoureux heard Chabrier play this piece, he urged him to orchestrate it. Lamoureux led the premiere of the orchestral version, now titled España, in Paris on November 4, 1883. It was an instant success, and Chabrier woke the next morning to find himself famous. Even now, 130 years later, España remains his best-known work.
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Debussy Ravel Pascal & Ami Rogé
DEBUSSY LA MER · PRÉLUDE À L’APRÈS-MIDI D’UN FAUNE FÊTES RAVEL MA MÈRE L’OYE RAPSODIE ESPAGNOLE SAINT-SAËNS: SCHERZO *** PASCAL & AMI ROGÉ CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918) 1 Prélude à I’après-midi d’un faune 9.02 2 Fêtes transcr. Ravel 5.49 MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937) Ma Mère l’Oye 3 I Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant 1.20 4 II Petit Poucet 2.39 5 III Laideronnette, lmpératrice des Pagodes 3.03 6 IV Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête 3.51 7 V Le jardin féerique 2.25 Rapsodie espagnole 8 I Prélude à la nuit 5.11 9 II Malagueña 2.00 10 III Habanera 3.01 11 IV Feria 6.16 CLAUDE DEBUSSY La Mer arr. Pascal & Ami Rogé 12 I De I’aube à midi sur la mer 8.19 13 II Jeux de vagues 7.33 14 III Dialogue du vent et de la mer 7.43 CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS (1835–1921) 15 Scherzo op.87 10.12 Total timing: 79.08 Pascal Rogé and Ami Rogé pianos French music for two pianos: Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Ravel Saint-Saëns’s Scherzo op.87, at once among the least known and most original of his keyboard works, was written at a low point in the composer’s life. His mother, the driving force and great love of his life, had died in December 1888. Now 54 years old, he was devastated, unable to compose, suffered from insomnia and talked of suicide. Ten months later, he moved out of his apartment in the rue Monsieur le Prince, had all his furniture, objets d’art, pictures and manuscripts sent to Dieppe to be housed in a museum there, and set off for Andalusia and thence to Cádiz.
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Introduction
Introduction Two months after the premiere of Maurice Ravel’s Histoires naturelles in 1908, Claude Debussy wrote to the music critic Louis Laloy, describing his fellow com- poser with a pair of unusual terms: “I agree with you in acknowledging that Ravel is exceptionally gifted, but what irritates me is his posture as a ‘faiseur de tours,’ or better yet, as an enchanting fakir, who can make flowers spring up around a chair. Unfortunately, a trick is always prepared, and it can only astonish once!”1 Neither “faiseur de tours” (performer of tricks) nor “fakir” was in common usage in the early twentieth century, though the latter term would have been known from Judith Gautier’s historical novel La Conquête du paradis (1890), whose title aptly captures its romanticized, colonialist perspective on eighteenth-century India. By linking him to conjurers—whether theatrical entertainers or exoticized thauma- turgists—Debussy impugned the long-term prospects of Ravel’s work. How could a trick with a looming expiration date produce music that would withstand repeat performances without unveiling its mysteries or losing its luster? Ravel’s music, for all its silvery charm, would soon tarnish; the weight of passing time would grind it to dust. To hear it once was to exhaust its secrets. But Debussy’s criticism was rapidly turned on its head by critics, biographers, and scholars who found in the language of conjuring the words they needed to combat Ravel’s detractors. Laloy, for one, compared Ravel to a sorcerer in a 1909 review of Gaspard de la nuit and described him as a “magician of sounds” when 1.
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Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 57,1937-1938, Trip
Arafomg of Mmit • Inwkhjn \\\\Ulll xV >: BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOUNDED IN 1881 BY HENRY L. HIGGINSON A FIFTY-SEVENTH SEASON 1937-1938 f,r [3] >" &r- Thursday Evening, February 10 Under the auspices of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and the Philharmonic Society of Brooklyn Boston Symphony Orchestra [Fifty-seventh Season, 1937-1938] SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Personnel Violins BURGIN, R. ELCUS, G. LAUGA, N. SAUVLET, H. RESNIKOFF, V Concert-master GUNDERSEN, R. KASSMAN, N. CHERKASSKY, P. EISLER, D. THEODOROWICZ, J. r HANSEN, E. MARIOTTI, \ . FEDOROVSKY, P. TAPLEY, R. KRIPS, A. LEIBOVICI, J. PIN FIELD, C. LEVEEN, P. KNUDSON, C. ZUNG, M. BEALE, M. GORODETZKY, L. MAYER, P. DIAMOND, S. DEL SORDO, R. FIEDLER, B. BRYANT, M. STONESTREET, L. MESSINA; S. MURRAY, J. ERKELENS, H. SEINIGER ,s. Violas H. LEFRANC, J, FOUREL, G. BERNARD, A. GROVER, H. ARTIERES, L. CAUHAPE, J. VAN WYNBERGEN, C. WERNER, AVIERINO, N. JACOB, R. GERHARDT, S. HUMPHREY, G. Violoncellos BEDETTI, J. LANGENDOEN, J. chardon, y. stockbridge, c. FABRIZIO, E. ZIGHERA, A. TORTELIER, P. droeghmans, h. warnke, j. MARJOLLET, L. ZIMBLER, J. Basses KUNZE, M. LEMAIRE, J. FRANKEL, I. GIRARD, H. BARWICKI, J. VONDRAK, A. MOLEUX, G. JUHT, L. DUFRESNE, G. Flutes Oboes Clarinets Bassoons LAURENT, G. GILLET, F. POi^ATSCHEK, V. ALLARD, R. BLADET, G. DEVERGIE, J. VALERIO, M. PANENKA, e. A. PAPPOUTSAKIS, J- MAZZEO, R. LAUS, Ejj Clarinet Piccolo English Horn Bass Clarinet Contra-Bassoon MADSEN, G. SPEYER, L. MIMART, P. PILLER, B. Horns Horns Trumpets Trombones VALKENIER, W. SINGER, J. MAGER, G. raichman, j. MACDONALD, w LANNOYE, M. LAFOSSE, iVi. hansotte, l.
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Download Program Notes
Shéhérazade, Three Poems of Tristan Klingsor for Voice and Orchestra Maurice Ravel taste for the exotic surfaces often in the The song-cycle Shéhérazade evolved out A catalogue of Maurice Ravel. He was 14 of the composer’s intention to write an opera years old in 1889, when the International Ex- based on the Sinbad episode from the Arabi- hibition astonished le tout Paris with such an Nights. Scheherazade is both the narrator musical attractions as a Javanese gamelan, a and heroine of that work, spinning out tale Hungarian gypsy ensemble, and a troupe of after tale because her life depends on it. Ravel Annamite dancers from Vietnam. If Claude never finished the opera, but he did com- Debussy was the first major composer to in- plete its overture, which was performed at a corporate some of those newly heard sounds concert of the Société Nationale in Paris on into his compositions, Ravel, 13 years his ju- May 27, 1899, to mild success. The piece was nior, would not be far behind. never published, and Ravel may have recy- Spain was the exotic milieu that surfaced cled some of its material into the song cycle most often in his oeuvre, although several of he composed four years later. So said Ravel’s such works — Alborada del gracioso (1904–05), pupil and biographer Alexis Roland-Manuel, Rapsodie espagnole and the opera L’Heure es- although scholars today find that any resem- pagnole (both from 1907), and the ever-popu- blance is slight. lar Boléro (1928) — may sound more redolent of faraway places today than they did to Rav- el, who hailed from a town practically on the In Short border between France and Spain and whose Born: March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, France mother was of Basque heritage.
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