Daphnis et Chloe Suites #1 & #2 by Ravel
by Matthew De Chirico
“Daphnis et Chloe’” is a ballet with music by Maurice Ravel. Ravel was commissioned and began work with impresario Diaghilev during 1909 and took three years to complete the score. This type of musical expression was well suited to Ravel’s colorful and rhythmic style. However, there was considerable conflict among the principle artists. Ravel described “Daphnis et Chloe’” as a “Symphonique Choregraphique” though Diaghilev complained that it was more Symphonique” than “Choreogrphique”. He nearly cancelled the project. So exhausting was the effort that Ravel’s health deteriorated forcing him to rest for several months)
The scenario was adapted by Michel Fokine, a classically trained dancer, from a pastoral drama, a romance by the Greek poet Longus thought to date from around the 2nd century AD. The story concerns the love between the goatherd Daphnis and the shepherdess Chloe’.
The ballet is in one act and three scenes. At almost an hour long, it is Ravel’s longest works. The music, some of the composer’s most passionate, is widely regarded as some of Ravel’s best, notable for its rhythmic diversity, lyricism and with lush harmonies typical of the impressionist movement in music. “Daphnis et Chloe’” is described as one of the most colorful, intricate and beautifully scored works ever written, one of the more skillfully orchestrated works in all the twentieth century. “Daphnis et Chloe’” is, section by section built along firmly classical lines. Ravel was more interested in reproducing traditional musical forms and structure than he was in achieving the kind of sonic soundscapes that get lumped together as impressionist music. The work is constructed symphonically on a very strict tonal plan, by means of a few themes, the development of which assures the work’s homogeneity. Even during the composer’s lifetime, contemporary commentators described the ballet as his masterpiece for orchestra. The work calls for an enormous orchestra, with approximately fifteen distinct percussion instruments and two wordless choruses heard both offstage and onstage.
The ballet premiered in June 1912. The performance was not well prepared for and had an unenthusiastic reception. It lasted only two performances, only to be revived to acclaim a year later.
Given its sheer size, the ballet score is much better known by excerpts, and when heard in concert, is usually represented by one of two suites. Although “Daphnis et Chloe” had been planned and written according to a “rigorous, tonal plan”, as a “symphonic unity”, Ravel extracted two concert suites from the complete score. He made the arrangements with only the minimum of changes from the full score.
The first suite, Suite # 1 comprising of music from the first two scenes for orchestral concert performance, (with wordless chorus), was arranged by Ravel in 1911. It draws material from the “Nocturne”, “Interlude” and “Danse guerrier” and portrays the courtship of Daphnis and Chloe’ and Chloe’s abduction by, and miraculous escape from a band of pirates.
The more popular suite, Suite #2 divided into three movements/sections, “Lever de Jour” or “Dawn”, “Pantomime” and “Danse Generale” was arranged by Ravel in 1913. It takes place in a grove sacred to the god Pan and begins with daybreak following the pirate’s night of terror. It opens with a spectacularly orchestrated depiction of the sun rising over a pastoral landscape, its theme built round a simple ascending sequence derived from the horn solo at the start of the ballet.
Being a ballet, the music does not actually stop between these movements/sections; they are all connected by transition sections and by the lack of authentic cadences. The movements/sections are easily discernible by the change of themes and moods.
“Daphnis et Chloe’” is, section by section built along firmly classical lines. Even the sunrise music at the opening of the third scene, with its thirty-second notes strewn about the orchestra and bright chirrups from the flute and piccolo flute and rising melody, has nothing in it that might be called progressive or even innovative in a technical sense. This was the essence of Ravel’s genius: the ability to take the old and make it sound completely new and different.