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552125-26bk VBO Ravel 10/2/06 6:04 PM Page 8 CD1 1 Valses nobles et sentimentales No. 3 Modéré . 1:19 2 Valses nobles et sentimentales No. 6 Assez vif . 0:59 3 Sonatine I. Modéré . 3:57 4 Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet . 10:18 5 Menuet sur le nom de Haydn . 1:43 6 Pavane pour une infante défunte . 6:19 7 Miroirs IV. Alborada del gracioso . .. 5:57 8 Rapsodie espagnole III. Habanera . 2:50 9 Violin Sonata II. Blues: Moderato . 5:24 0 Chants populaires No.1 Chanson espagnole . 2:25 ! Piano Concerto in D major for the Left Hand . 18:24 @ La Valse . 13:08 Total Timing . 73:20 CD2 1 Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 . 16:28 2 Jeux d’eau . 4:58 3 String Quartet in F major II. Assez vif . 6:32 4 Gaspard de la nuit I. Ondine . 5:57 5 Tzigane . 9:32 6 Le Tombeau de Couperin V. Menuet . 4:17 7 Don Quichotte à Dulcinée I. Chanson romanesque . 2:23 8 Ma mère l’oye V. Le jardin féerique . 3:51 9 Piano Concerto in G major No. 2 Adagio assai . 8:25 0 Boléro . 13:36 Total Timing . 76:28 FOR FULL LIST OF RAVEL RECORDINGS WITH ARTIST DETAILS AND FOR A GLOSSARY OF MUSICAL TERMS PLEASE GO TO WWW.NAXOS.COM 552125-26bk VBO Ravel 10/2/06 6:04 PM Page 2 MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) For further explorations into the world of Ravel, we suggest : Orchestral Works Boléro / Ma mère l’oye / Others .......................................................................................... 8.550173 HIS LIFE Rapsodie espagnole / Daphnis et Chloé / Others ................................................................ 8.550424 French, of paternal Swiss and maternal Basque descent, Ravel combined skill in orchestration with Tzigane ............................................................................................................................... 8.555093 meticulous technical command of harmonic resources. He wrote in an attractive musical idiom that Concertos was entirely his own, in spite of contemporary comparisons with Debussy, a composer his senior Complete Piano Concertos .................................................................................................. 8.550753 by some twenty years. Chamber Music HIS MUSIC French Violin Sonatas ......................................................................................................... 8.550276 Ravel and Fauré: String Quartets ........................................................................................ 8.554722 Stage Works Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet .................................. 8.550249 Ravel wrote two operas, the first, described as a comédie-musicale, L’heure espagnole (The Piano Music Spanish Clock) and the second, with a libretto by Colette, the imaginative L’enfant et les sortilèges Miroirs / Jeux d’eau / Others ............................................................................................... 8.550683 (The Child and the Enchantments), in which the naughty child is punished when furniture and La Valse / Gaspard de la Nuit / Others .................................................................................8.553008 animals assume personalities of their own. Ravel wrote his ballet Daphnis et Chloé in response to a Ravel Piano Favourites ........................................................................................................ 8.555798 commission from the Russian impresario Diagilev. Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose), originally for piano duet, was orchestrated and used for a ballet, as were the Valses nobles et sentimentales and Vocal Music the choreographic poem La valse. Ravel’s last ballet score was the famous Boléro, a work he Chansons .......................................................................................................................8.554176-77 himself described as an orchestrated crescendo. Orchestral Music In addition to the scores for ballet and arrangements of piano works for the same purpose, Ravel wrote an evocative Rapsodie espagnole (Spanish Rhapsody). Orchestrations of original piano compositions include a version of the very well known Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Infanta), the Menuet antique, ‘Alborada del gracioso’ from Miroirs, and pieces from Le tombeau de Couperin. Ravel wrote two piano concertos, the first, completed in 1930, for the left hand only, commissioned by the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm in the war, and the second, completed in 1931, for two hands. 2 8.552125-26 8.552125-26 7 552125-26bk VBO Ravel 10/2/06 6:04 PM Page 6 Le Tombeau de Couperin V. Menuet (CD 2, track 6) Vocal Music Ravel wrote his Tombeau de Couperin between 1914 and 1917. It serves, in its form as a dance Songs by Ravel include the remarkable Shéhérazade, settings of a text by Tristan Klingsor for suite, as a tribute to François Couperin, the great French composer of the early eighteenth century. mezzo-soprano and orchestra, and the Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (Don Quixote to Dulcinea) songs, The elegant and evocative Menuet is followed by a musette trio section. originally written for a film of Don Quixote in which the famous Russian bass Chaliapin was to star. Don Quichotte à Dulcinée No. 1. Chanson romanesque (CD 2, track 7) Songs with piano include settings of the Jules Renard Histoires naturelles, with their instinctive The three songs of Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (Don Quixote to Dulcinea) were written in 1932-33 to sympathy with the birds and the cricket portrayed. texts by Paul Morand. They were originally intended for the great Russian singer Chaliapin in a film Chamber Music about Cervantes, but not used for that purpose. In this work Ravel bases each of the songs on a Ravel’s chamber music includes the evocative nostalgia of the Introduction and Allegro for harp, Spanish or Basque dance rhythm and the ‘Chanson romanesque’ is filled with the extravagant flute, clarinet and string quartet, a violin sonata with a jazz-style blues movement, a piano trio and promises of Don Quixote. a string quartet. Tzigane, written for the Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi, is a remarkable Ma mère l’oye V. Le jardin féerique (CD 2, track 8) excursion into extravagant gypsy style. Ma mere l’oye was originally written as a suite of Mother Goose nursery tales for piano. After Piano Music visiting characters such as Sleeping Beauty, Hop-o’-my-thumb, and Beauty and the Beast, the work closes in a fairy garden. Ravel was himself a good pianist. His music for the piano includes compositions in his own nostalgic archaic style, such as the Pavane and the Menuet antique, as well as the more complex Piano Concerto in G major II. Adagio assai (CD 2, track 9) textures of pieces such as Jeux d’eau (Fountains), Miroirs, and Gaspard de la nuit. The Sonatina is The G major Concerto, at first conceived as a Basque Rhapsody, was given its premiere on 14 in Ravel’s neo-classical style and Le tombeau de Couperin is in the form of a Baroque dance suite. January 1933. Ravel claimed to have taken the slow movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet as a model for his second movement Adagio. MUSIC NOTES Boléro (CD 2, track 10) Valses nobles et sentimentales No. 3. Modéré ; No. 6. Assez vif (CD 1, tracks 1-2) Of all Ravel’s orchestral music, the work that is most associated with him is Boléro, written in 1928 The Valses nobles et sentimentales were originally written for piano and later orchestrated in 1912 for the dancer Ida Rubinstein; it won immediate popularity. Its insistent Spanish rhythm develops as a ballet. The eight short dances evoke a nostalgic feeling for a world that was passing. over a gradual orchestral crescendo. Sonatine I. Modéré (CD 1, track 3) Ravel’s Sonatine, a model of fastidious classicism, was completed in 1905. Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet (CD 1, track 4) Ravel wrote his Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet in 1905. Relatively simple in conception, this work contains in it the spirit of an age and of a poetic national mood. 6 8.552125-26 8.552125-26 3 552125-26bk VBO Ravel 10/2/06 6:04 PM Page 4 Menuet sur le nom de Haydn (CD 1, track 5) La Valse (CD 1, track 12) Ravel wrote his Menuet sur le nom de Haydn in 1909 to commemorate the centenary of the death La Valse was written in response to a commission from Sergey Diagilev. Coming as it does after of Haydn. A motif built around Haydn’s name is used as the core of the work, a pastiche of the final dissolution of the Habsburg Empire, La Valse seems again to suggest a vanished world, eighteenth-century styles. the mysterious evocation of an epoch that was gone, a masque in the imagination of an Edgar Allan Poe. Pavane pour une infante défunte (CD 1, track 6) The Pavane pour une infante défunte was originally a piano piece, written in 1899. Ravel Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 (CD 2, track 1) orchestrated the piece in 1910, when it was used for a ballet. Its title couples a Spanish element Daphnis et Chloé deals with the love of the shepherd Daphnis for the shepherdess Chloé, Ravel with a longing for the past. drew two orchestral suites from the original score, the second of them in 1912. The second suite celebrates a long-vanished world, evoked in vivid and moving orchestral colours, subtly enhanced Miroirs IV. Alborada del gracioso (CD 1, track 7) by the use of an added chorus. Miroirs was completed in 1905 and each of the five pieces that make up the work was dedicated to one of Ravel’s circle of friends. The fourth movement, Alborada del gracioso (The Jester’s Aubade), Jeux d’eau (CD 2, track 2) is dedicated to the Greek-born writer Michel de Calvocoressi, and gives a brilliant vision of Spain. Jeux d’eau, written in 1901, explores new possibilities for the piano. The predominant impression is that of cascading chords, a development of a technique earlier used by Liszt, not least in his Rapsodie espagnole III. Habanera (CD 1, track 8) 1883 Jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este.

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