DEBUSSY RAVEL Images, Book I Gaspard De La Nuit* 1 1

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) SOMMCD 0168 Images, Books I & II · L’Isle Joyeuse MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Gaspard de la nuit · Jeux d’eau · La Valse DEBUSSY ALESSANDRO TAVERNA piano Images, Books I & II L’Isle Joyeuse DEBUSSY RAVEL Images, Book I Gaspard de la nuit* 1 1. Reflets dans l’eau 5:23 8 1. Ondine 6:49 2 2. Hommage à Rameau 6:47 9 2. Le Gibet 6:48 RAVEL 3 3. Mouvement 3:36 bl 3. Scarbo 9:57 Gaspard de la nuit Images, Book II bm Jeux d’eau 5:36 Jeux d’eau 4 1. Cloches à travers les feuilles 4:16 bn La Valse* 12:27 5 2. Et la lune descend sur le temple 5:32 La Valse qui fut Total duration 77:41 6 3. Poissons d’or 4:19 *Recorded live at Turner Sims during 7 L’Isle Joyeuse 5:58 a recital on 16 January 2016 TURNER Recorded at Turner Sims, Southampton on 16 & 17 January 2017 SIMS Southampton Recording Producer: Siva Oke Recording Engineer: Paul Arden-Taylor ALESSANDRO Front Cover Photograph: Alessandro Taverna © Pierluigi Marchesan Design: Andrew Giles TAVERNA © & 2017 SOMM RECORDINGS · THAMES DITTON · SURREY · ENGLAND piano DDD Made in the EU DEBUSSY and RAVEL to be a fount of inspiration, wherein pictures almost as much as I love music.’ PIANO MUSIC his piano music – as with many of his Not every one of Debussy or Ravel’s contemporaries – took the relatively mature masterpieces was inspired by In considering European music of the Debussy was 13 years Ravel’s senior, but recently-established transcendentalism visual stimuli, for it is their musical last half-millennium, one occasionally both composers came to prominence of the post-Lisztians as a sine qua genius that defines them not superficial encounters popular ‘pairings’ of around the same time – in the last years non, his writing for the instrument similarities that may have tended to composers, who, for reasons of of the 19th century – their subsequent demanding a virtuoso technique, but mislead earlier commentators. shared nationality or genre, or having careers, up until the first years of World necessarily restricting the practicalities been broadly contemporaneous, are War I, running concurrently, as music of performance. • perceived to be similar in outlook and for orchestra and for solo piano became Our notes accompanying the music musical language. Pairings – such as dominant for both composers. Equally, as with their fellow- begin with the first work in the recital Bach and Handel, Haydn and Mozart, Impressionists in visual art, both to be written, Ravel’s Jeux d’Eau. This for examples – can often be a useful It was undoubtedly their parallel output Debussy and Ravel explored the new dates from 1901, when the 26-year-old shorthand in making a point, but run in these genres, as well as their shared musical Impressionism – another was still ostensibly a student of Gabriel the risk of superficiality in terms of nationality, that led to them being connexion between them, but at heart Fauré, to whom the work was dedicated. overlooking their essential differences. ‘paired’ in the way earlier masters were, a superficial one – each in their own, It is, however, wholly representative of but later generations have learned quite different ways: Debussy as if Ravel’s mature style, and the Lisztian It is only through examining the totality their essential differences. For Debussy, through the half-lights and tints of influence we mentioned earlier is of a great composer’s output that his perhaps the more withdrawn artist, the Monet or Manet – and even, as in our nowhere more self-evident in Ravel’s individuality becomes apparent: such evolution of a fresh musical language recital, music directly inspired by the piano music than here, a work clearly considerations of course take time, and based upon the whole-tone scale 18th-century painter Jean-Antoine suggested by Liszt’s Les jeux d’eau à la it is fascinating to see how perceptions enabled him to probe more deeply Watteau, and Ravel as if by way of the Villa d’Este (which is found in the third of composers, once thought to be very into the inner feelings of his mind, a somewhat brighter representation book of the Années de pèlerinage). similar in outlook, have changed, as superfine creativity that often heard his of Sisley, Degas or Pisarro. There are later studies reveal aspects of their music inspired through visual terms; for exceptions to these broad rules in the Ravel explained the work’s origins: music that were previously either Ravel – half-Basque in his background work of both composers, of course, ‘Jeu d’eau begins the pianistic novelties overlooked or unknown, showing them – a no less sensitive composer, the but we have Debussy’s letter to Edgard which one may find in my work. This as quite different artistic equals. existing tonal framework continued Varèse of 1911 in which he wrote ‘I love piece, inspired by the noise of water 2 3 and by the musical sounds suggested by is Gaspard de la Nuit, fantaisies à la questioning the scene – Bertrand’s but although he did not follow that sprays, cascades, and brooks, is based manière de Rembrandt et de Callot, so poem itself begins with a quotation work with a ballet of similar length on two motifs as in a sonata movement for poet and composer the inspiration from Faust – as insect-like elements of and scope, his fascination with dance – without, however, having a classical was essentially visual, and the titles of life surround the hanging corpse. had certainly been broadened by tonal plan.’ the three movements of Ravel’s suite the experience – and by the success are taken directly from Bertrand. Scarbo is a goblin of the night, Daphnis enjoyed. Ravel later wrote on the manuscript unstoppable in energy and impish ‘Dieu fluvial riant de l’eau qui le In this work, Ravel takes post-Lisztian devilment, only occasionally pausing to Soon after war had broken out in chatouille...’ – a quotation from the transcendentalism to the limit; the first observe the nightmares his behaviour August 1914, Ravel volunteered to join French symbolist poet Henri de movement, Ondine, depicts the water- has caused before he is off again, the Army. At 39, he was not too old for Régnier’s Cité des eaux, which did not nymph singing seductively to entice frighteningly active until – at the very active service, but served as an artillery in fact appear until 1903, but which the listener to the depths of the lake in end – he virtually disappears into thin air, driver at Verdun, the privations of Ravel clearly felt put into words the which she dwells. The connotation of expressed in piano writing of which the which undermined his previously essence of Jeu d’eau – ‘The river God water in Ondine is reminiscent of that difficulties and technical demands bid robust health. After the War, Ravel laughs as the water tickles him...’ in Jeu d’eau, but in the later work the fair to surpass any Lisztian expectation. returned to composition, taking up an technical demands are greater as the idea he had harboured for almost 15 • drama is darker and more pronounced • years – a musical tribute to Vienna, a By the time of Ravel’s suite for throughout – clearly, the expression Both Ravel and (a little later) Debussy different city post-war to that which piano, Gaspard de la nuit: trios is more startling, more sudden and were commissioned by Serge Diaghilev had rivalled Paris at the dawn of the poèmes pour piano (1908), he was intense in its drama – most notably to compose music for his Ballets 20th century. widely regarded as a leading figure in the climactic outburst before the Russes. Ravel replied with Daphnis et in the younger generation of French closing pages wind the music down. Chloé, first performed in Paris in 1912, Ravel’s idea was to honour, musically, composers. The work takes its title later becoming better-known through the Vienna of the mid-19th century from a posthumously-published prose The second movement, Le Gibet, two concert suites extracted from it, – the Vienna of the Strauss dynasty poem, written in 1836, by Aloysius hauntingly depicts a gibbet in the although the complete score is now through the dance most closely Bertrand (1807-1841), which had a desert, holding the body of a hanged relatively frequently heard in concert. associated with the Austrian capital – great influence on the later Symbolist man, and a bell in the distance marks Daphnis et Chloé clearly established the waltz – the title, La valse, becoming poets. The full title of Bertram’s work the inexorable passing of time as if Ravel’s credentials as a ballet composer, his first post-war composition. 4 5 Now discharged from the Army, and never produced the score as a ballet, roots in classical forms albeit expressed The work’s tripartite structure opens fully established – since Debussy’s and was not a little miffed when it in textures inbued with (as Edward with a scene-setting passage of great death in 1918 – as the leading French soon became a popular concert item, Sackville-West wrote almost seventy brilliance which eventually leads to composer, Ravel conceived La valse as yet the Russian did describe Ravel’s years ago) ‘constant effects of colour, a lyrical secondary idea, perhaps a ballet score, originally giving it the score as ‘a masterpiece.’ of shadow and of light, which form his expressing the couple’s tender affections title Vienne. An interesting aspect of unique contribution to music’. before the more vivid foreground Ravel’s career as a composer was his Diaghilev was right on both counts: returns, the exhilaration of the others habit of orchestrating several of his lacking a story, and lasting less than Composed in 1903-04, Debussy’s L’i sle almost tangible as the breathless solo piano works, effectively making fifteen minutes, La valse is not a joyeuse (The Happy Island) is a brilliant coda brings to an end Debussy’s most one work fulfil the functions of two, but ballet in the traditional sense, being evocation in tone of the composer’s extrovert and thrilling work for solo he did not produce orchestral versions more evocative of one: it is certainly a fount of inspiration – Jean-Antoine piano, a masterpiece reaffirming his of either Jeu-d’eau or of Gaspard.

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