By James O'leary
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by James O'Leary A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in the Department of Music WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, Massachusetts May 20,2004 Nothing happens in a vacuum, including theses. First, I need to thank my friends who have endured ceaseless talk of Ravel, Surrealism, and deadlines. Jacob, Lili, Laura, and Liz have not only offered brilliant suggestions, but have also offered steadfast support (and a welcome willingness to procrastinate at the drop of a hat). Second, I must express sincere appreciation to Professor Hirsch, Professor Bloxam, and Professor Newman who have spent so much time offering their invaluable advice, be it on tackling Piano Concertos, pronouncing umlauts, or handling the senior year jitters. To my family, who hears it the least but deserves it the most, I owe undying gratitude. They have made many sacrifices so I could attend Williams, and throughout my four years they have been unshakably supportive and generous. Mom, Dad, Mike, Scott- thank you. Finally, I owe infinite gratitude to Professor Sheppard. Brilliant, kind, and inspiring, Professor Sheppard has completely reshaped the way I hear music in just four fast years, broadening my musical knowledge to include vastly different artistic movements and a wide array of different cultures. He has burst my musical vacuum, expanding my perspective to include a variety of music from Monteverdi to Joni Mitchell to Messiaen-and of course, Ravel. Furthermore, he has been incredibly generous with his advice, not only in advising this thesis while on leave, but still somehow managing to sacrifice his time to offer precious guidance about graduate school and senior year. I consider myself truly lucky to have had the opportunity to work so closely with him. Any insight contained in the following pages has its origins in his teaching. Of course, any shortcomings are completely my own. CHAPTERI1 16 AMPUTATION:SUBVERSION OF FORMIN THE PIANOCONCERTO FOR THE LEFTHAND CHAPTERI11 3 8 A URINALIN THE SYMPHONYHALL: SUBVERSION OF GENREIN LA VALSE AND BOLERO CHAPTERIV 64 THECAT'S MOUAO/MOUAIN: SUBVERSION OF MIMESISIN L'ENFANTET LES SORTILEGES CHAPTERV MUTETERROR: SUBVERSION OF INEFFIBILITY CONFOUNDINGCONSCIENCE AND SINCERITY The second half of Ravel's compositional career has not fared well with critics or historians. Donald Ferguson, writing in 1935, two years before Ravel died, had this to say about the composer's later works: Gradually his strange balance of absorption and aloofness is overset by a preponderance of the latter quality. In only one work, the extraordinary ballet "Daphnis et Chloe" does the human element maintain itself amid the artistic preoccupation of the composer. The general tendency seems to be to agree that in his later works Ravel the stylist has almost obliterated Ravel the man. He has recently turned (as in the violin-sonata, tinged with the colors rather than the spirit of jazz) to an ultra-modern idiom which is apparently unconvincingly handled. ' Paul Henry Lang shares a similar opinion in his 1941 book Music in Western Civilization: Ravel . in his later years became a mere orchestrator handling his many-headed orchestra with supreme skill but without much spiritual conviction, and ended by orchestrating other composers' works (Moussorgsky) or writing stunts appropriate for the modern cinema theater orchestra (Bolero). 1 Donald N. Ferguson, A Short History of Music (New York: F.S. Crofts & Co., 1943), 487. 1 The charges are laid out here, as they have been since Ravel's lifetime: that he was a heartless composer, one interested in craft above all and hopelessly uninspired in his final years. More recent opinions of the composer, while lacking the overtly pejorative tone of the earlier reviews, tend to speak the same way. Mosco Carner declared: Ravel felt a strong resentment at losing his position among the leaders of musical fashion and strove hard towards a transformation and even a rejuvenation of his style and technical methods. The results, however, were not altogether convincing. Ravel had done his best work before 1920. .2 Similarly, Alec Herman wrote: The music is both elaborately sophisticated and, in essence, simple. Both passionate and chaste. A note of acerbity creeps in, as the Satiean and Charbrier-like irony which had tempered the sensuousness gains the upper hand. During the war years, Ravel creates a series of experimental works.3 But Herman also offered an important qualification: If Ravel seemed cold and aloof as a man, it must have been, not because he felt too little, but because he felt too much.4 There is something intriguingly impassive about Ravel, especially in his music after 1920. His music is somehow inexpressive, which these critics equate with inhumanity or insensitivity. The meticulousness of Ravel's musical craft is often interpreted as insincerity, as if technique and deep emotion cannot easily be wed. Sincerity, it seems, must be accompanied by abandon; composure and grief are not a 2 Mosco Carner, "Music in the Mainland of Europe: 1918-1939" from The New Oxford History of Music: The Modern Age 1890-1960, vol. 10 (London: New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 234. Alec Harman, with Anthony Milner, Wilfrid Mellers, Man and His Music: the story of Musical Experience in the West (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1988), 949. Zbid., 950- 1. convincing pair. Yet Claude Roland-Manuel, the often cryptic student, biographer, and friend of the composer, recorded Ravel as saying: I am sometimes credited with opinions which appear very paradoxical concerning the falsity of art and the dangers of sincerity. The fact is I refute simply and absolutely to confound the conscience of the artist, which is one thing, with his sincerity, which is another. Sincerity is of no value unless one's conscience helps make it apparent. This conscience compels us to turn ourselves into good craftsmen. My objective, therefore, is technical perfection. I can strive unceasingly to this end since I am certain of never being able to attain it. The important thing is to get nearer to it all the time. Art, no doubt, has other efects, but the artist, in my opinion, should have no other aim5 "Conscience" is a very odd word to use in this context. He could have said "taste," "correctness," or "control" and the passage would make sense, but "conscience" seems to have other implications. Notice, too, that Ravel never admits insincerity. In fact, according to his logic, if technical perfection makes the true feelings of the composer come to light, then Ravel is, in effect, defending himself as an entirely sincere artist. The difference between Ravel and expressionist writers is that the passion one usually associates with more emotive compositions is allayed in Ravel, made less pronounced and less obvious. As Vladirnir Jankkl6vitch described it, this is "reticence in the face of the Appassionato," a characteristic of ~~rnbolism.~~avel's art is not about the tortured expression of an inner feeling, as in the manner of Beethoven or Schumann, but rather the expression of exteriority. The focus on the surface, the exterior, was formulated in his first decade of composing. Many of the works from this period attempted to represent musically the Arbie Orenstein, Ravel: Man and Musician (New York: London: Columbia University Press, 1975). 118. ' Vladimir Jank61Cvitch, Music and the Inefable, trans. by Carolyn Abbate (Princeton: Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003), 32 appearance of objects and people as he saw them: flittering moths (Noctuelles), clock- shops (L'Heure espagnole), tolling bells (Le gibet), swirling water (Ondine), birds in the sunrise (Daphnis et Chloe), and animal mannerisms (L'histoiries naturelles). However, the Symbolism of Ravel is not simply a matter of musical imitation. Symbolists seek to present the manner in which they perceive an external object through art. It is not recording, but rather a subjective transcription. Beauty is not skin deep; for the Symbolist it touches one's spirit. Edgar Allen Poe, on of Ravel's literary heroes, proclaimed: That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the contemplation of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation, or excitement of the soul, which we recognize as the Poetic Sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from Truth, which is the satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of the heart.7 One such piece that appears to connect the inner soul with an outer object is his piano set Miroirs (1906). It consists of musical representations of moths at night, sad birds, a boat on the ocean, a jester dancing in the morning, and a valley resounding with the chiming of bells. The collection itself serves as a mirror, for not only can one discern external objects in the piece, but there is a sense in which the music reflects the composer's inner state or personality. Thus the birds are personified as sad, the jester can be at once the traditional extroverted show-off and at the same time the introverted, pensive figure of the B section of the piece, and the ocean has its own personality, at times placid and gentle, at times stormy and fierce. The same reflective nature of Symbolism can be discerned in other compositions, as in L'Histoire naturelles (1906). In these pensive pieces, the objects depicted in the 7 Orenstein, 129. music are not only personified, but rather as Emile Vuillermoz claims, like Miroirs, they are projections of the composer himself: When Ravel made one of those razor-edged remarks of which he alone possessed the secret, he used to make a characteristic gesture: he put his right hand quickly behind his back, described a sort of ironical pirouette, cast down his mischievously sparkling eyes and let his voice drop suddenly a fourth or fifth.