Maurice Ravel

This document contains a series of short articles that were written for advanced opera students at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in order to assist their preparation and subsequent fully staged performances of Ravel's one act opera "L'Enfant et les Sortileges". The chief aim was to place the work within its historical context so as to provide a basis for a sound stylistic insight. It was staged along with Poulenc's "Les Mamelles de Tiresias", and similar notes can be found on this opera elsewhere on this site.
It is hoped that the notes may prove useful to others preparing the work or those who simply wish to enhance their understanding of the work.

This is the complete 132 pages of this monumental work, with my notes showing themes, use of doubling, form, harmony and much more.

One of Ravel's longest works, it is a seldom played, or studied, masterpiece.

A perfect work to examine for new harmonic and orchestration choices to add towards your own writing.

As the 20th century began, composers sought the new sounds of modernity. Jazz was one of those new sounds. Soon, European composers and jazz musicians began to influence one another in a period of transcontinental mutual influence that helped shape the musical makeup of the 20th century. Written in May 2015 for an undergraduate 20th century Western music history course, this paper focuses on three particularly important composers of the early 20th century - Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky - and examines the ways in which they were influenced by jazz as well as how their works, in turn, influenced jazz musicians.

This article presents the interpretation of 21 songs (composed between 1911 and 1927) by Irena Wieniawska (1879–1932), based on Paul Verlaine’s poems. The composer, also known as Poldowski or Lady Dean Paul, was a daughter of the famous Polish artist and violinist – Henryk Wieniawski, and Isabelle Hampton-Wieniawska. She lived and worked in Belgium and England. It is worth mentioning that Madame Poldowski knew some impressionistic works (among others Maurice Ravel’s) in France and these experiences influenced her artistic idiom.
First, the author analyzes the lyrics (main themes as well as the structure of Verlaine’s texts). Then the attention is paid to the music level: the author subsequently describes the basic musical elements such as melody, piano accompaniment, harmony, texture, form. In the third part of this article, following some of the rules (so-called corollaries) by Henry Woollett, the problem of word-music relationships in Wieniawska’s songs is discussed. In conclusion the author suggests that Madame Poldowski’s vocal-instrumental pieces represent the genre of French mélodie because of verbal transparency (recitative and syllabic treatment of text) as well as harmonic and formal complexity, and variability. A hypothesis is put forward that this aesthetics is a reinterpretation of common symbolist features in music.

When conceived as the presence of the past, memory can be said to pervade the music of Maurice Ravel. At first glance, the number and range of these acts of musical memory—including pieces modeled on the Medieval ballade, the Renaissance chanson, the Baroque tombeau, the Classical sonatina, and the Romantic poem, among others—would seem to testify to a smooth relation between past and present. Upon closer review, however, this relation is more problematic than it first appeared. One of the most complex and captivating artistic testaments to what Andreas Huyssen has called ‘twilit memory’—not only in Ravel's music, but in Western modernism as a whole—is the eighth and final waltz of his piano suite Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911). In this waltz, which Ravel entitled ‘Epilogue’, the hope to make the past present is reborn with each of its numerous thematic recollections, only to be dashed repeatedly by the melancholy knowledge of its impossibility. In the course of analysing the Epilogue, we explore affinities between its musical behaviors and philosophical accounts of memory by Bergson, Jankélévitch, and Nora, while also relating it to other memory pieces by Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and Debussy.

Tesi di dottorato (cotutela Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia - Université Paris 8)

L’elaborato si propone di sondare la presenza del saxofono all’interno delle partiture orchestrali francesi e italiane della prima metà del secolo XX, con lo scopo di confermare la legittimità della sua inclusione in pianta stabile fra le fila dell’orchestra. La prima parte della tesi (Teoria. I trattati di strumentazione e di orchestrazione) ha come obiettivo quello di fornire una ricognizione mai effettuata prima d’ora della presenza del saxofono all’interno dei trattati di strumentazione e di orchestrazione sia francesi sia italiani, ma anche di altre nazioni. La seconda (Composizioni francesi) e la terza parte (Composizioni italiane) contemplano la presenza di alcune indagini su compositori che hanno incluso il saxofono all’interno delle loro partiture per orchestra. La scelta dei musicisti e delle composizioni da analizzare è stata fatta sulla base della portata della parte dedicata al saxofono, nonché del peso della singola partitura e del compositore presi in esame.


The aim of this thesis is to investigate the presence of the saxophone in French and Italian orchestral scores, written in the first half of the 20th century, with the purpose of demonstrating the possibility of permanently introducing it in the rows in the orchestra. The first part of the thesis (Teoria. I trattati di strumentazione e di orchestrazione) seeks to produce a reconnaisance (never done so far) of the presence of the saxophone in instrumentation and orchestration treatises, both in Italy and France, but also in other countries. The second section (Composizioni francesi) and the third part (Composizioni italiane) take into consideration some composers who included the saxophone in their orchestral scores. The choice of musicians and composers to be analyzed was made considering the importance of the saxophone’s part, as well as the relevance of the single score and of the composer examined.


La thèse se propose de souligner la présence du saxophone dans les partitions d’orchestre françaises et italiennes de la première moitié du XXe siècle, dans le but de confirmer la possibilité d’intégrer le saxophone à l’orchestre de façon permanente. La première partie de la thèse (Teoria. I trattati di strumentazione e di orchestrazione) a l’objectif de fournir une reconnaissance (jamais effectuée jusqu’à présent) de la présence du saxophone dans les traités d’instrumentation et d’orchestration français comme italiens, mais aussi d’autres pays. La deuxième (Composizioni francesi) et la troisième partie (Composizioni italiane) offrent des recherches sur des compositeurs qui ont placé le saxophone dans leurs partitions d’orchestre. Le choix des musiciens et des compositions à analyser a été fait sur la base de l’importance de la partie du saxophone, ainsi que la portée de la partition et du compositeur pris en examen.

Analysis of the orchestration and motivic development of the intriguing work by the French master.

One of the more remarkable features of this movement is the fact that the theme is played almost continuously. Of the 63 measures in the score, 43 measures contain this unaltered four note motive (68%), a remarkably high percentage.
These four notes imply the diminished, or octatonic scale. This scale is alternating half and whole steps.

FREE COPY ON REQUEST. The Nancy-born composer Jules-Marie Laure Maugüé remains absent from any French musicological literature, although his work was particularly applauded at the Concerts Lamoureux, Colonne, Straram, the Société Nationale de Musique and the Société Musicale Indépendante. The recent discovery of the musician’s personal papers at the library of the Conservatoire de Nancy – autograph manuscripts of scores and theoretical writings, correspondence, press clippings, concert programs, sketchy catalogues of his works, autobiographical notes and booklets – makes it possible to lift the veil for the first time from this “man of taste” whose music was very favorably greeted by critics, and valued by his friends Florent Schmitt and Maurice Ravel. This exhaustive critical catalog is accompanied by a list of all known public performances of Maugüé’s works, and by an inventory of the documents available in Nancy.

Piano quintett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJcPoFxlYEY

“Exoticism” is often used as a passe-partout concept in order to describe music referring to geographic Others. But it becomes especially problematic when applied to Ravel’s music, in which the Other is frequently evoked (whether as a geographical, chronological or stylistic other). Therefore Ravel’s positions and compositional choices should be considered on a case-by-case basis when interpreting his music. By adhering to issues raised by Ralph Locke regarding exoticism and reflecting on how musical topics might be perceived, this essay proposes a reading of Chansons madécasses that goes beyond their exoticism. Ravel’s decisions suggest a reading that accentuates modernist and expressive (and especially erotic) parameters more than exotic ones.

Le nom du compositeur nancéien Jules-Marie Laure Maugüé demeure absent de la littérature musicologique en langue française, bien que son œuvre – abondante – ait été applaudie aux concerts Lamoureux, Colonne et Straram, ainsi qu’à la Société Nationale de Musique et à la Société Musicale Indépendante. La découverte récente des manuscrits et papiers personnels du musicien à la bibliothèque du Conservatoire Régional du Grand Nancy permet de lever pour la première fois le voile sur cet « homme de goût » dont la musique – aux couleurs chatoyantes – fut favorablement saluée par la critique et estimée par Florent Schmitt et Maurice Ravel.

Le quintette pour cordes et piano est disponible à https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJcPoFxlYEY

The aim of this article is to interpret songs by Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and a less‑known composer — Irena Wieniawska (1879−1932), based on the same poems by Paul Verlaine. In the first part of this paper, the relationships between Wieniawska, Fauré, Debussy, Ravel and Verlaine are subsequently described. Then, the author makes a comparison between selected songs by French composers and Madame Poldowski, indicating main similarities and differences. The final part consists of some remarks related to the fact that Wieniawska fulfills features of the French mélodie very strictly. This is why her songs seem to be more traditional, not as allusive and sophisticated as Debussy's or Ravel's vocal works.

This chapter provides an overview of European Decadence before honing in on memory, one of its central concerns. First, I delineate the Decadent perspective on memory by examining its treatment by contemporary poets (e.g., Verlaine and Mallarmé), novelists (Huysmans and Proust), and philosophers (Nietzsche and Bergson), as well as by more recent scholars (Nora and Halbwachs). Then I perform a close analysis of Ravel's Sonatine against this backdrop to show how a feature that musicologists have long taken for granted in this modest work -- the transfigured reappearance of a theme from the first movement in the second and third -- can be understood to reflect the world from which it came. It not only models the petite phrase from Vinteuil's sonata that gave such exquisite pleasure to the protagonist of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, but also works as a tiny keyhole through which the universe of the belle époque comes into view -- or, rather, into audibility, just as the "almost impalpable droplet" of linden tea miraculously brings forth, through smell and taste, previously irretrievable memories of the narrator's childhood in the same novel. Other chapters in this book explore dandyism, traumatic and redemptive memory, idylls and bacchanals, melancholy and ecstasy, and the figure of the faun as a touchstone for the relationship between Debussy and Ravel.

Marguerite Long se refirió a Ravel en una ocasión como un “hidraulicien de génie” (un hidráulico genial), hablando sobre su obra Une barque sur l’océan. Esta obra, precisamente, ha sido la que ha inspirado este trabajo de investigación, a través de su lenguaje de sonidos, nos describe un paisaje acuático que cobra vida en las manos de los pianistas, quienes realmente consiguen hacernos sentir el océano a través de la interpretación de tan bella pieza.

El agua en la música es un tema recurrente, ha servido tanto como para composiciones clásicas y contemporáneas como temática para programas de conciertos y grabación de discos.

Los objetivos de este trabajo de investigación consisten en conocer en profundidad la pieza de Ravel Une barque sur l’océan. Observar cuáles son sus influencias y origen de este lenguaje, analizar cómo han usado Ravel y otros compositores los recursos del lenguaje musical para transmitir la idea del agua a través de la música, determinar cuáles son los nexos que tienen en común las obras con contenido acuático y descubrir si existe una conexión directa entre la imagen del agua y nuestra forma de interpretar. Si la imaginación influye en nuestra gestualidad como intérpretes, en la búsqueda de un sonido en particular.

This thesis seeks to contribute towards the emerging discourse in Ravel studies concerning gender, as well as adding to the ongoing work in musical narratology, especially as regards ballet, to which very little narratological attention has been given. Employing a combination of narratological and Schenkerian analysis, this thesis argues that there are significant moments of divergence between the gendered narratives outlined by the libretto and the music in Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé. These ‘meaning gaps’ are freighted with the hermeneutic potential of Riffaterre’s ‘ungrammaticalities’, constituting a ‘guideline to semiosis’. The work is examined as an example of transvaluation, in which the musical score is understood to call into question the gendered cultural values inscribed in the libretto.
Five scenes from the ballet are considered in detail. An examination of the dance contest between Daphnis and Dorcon (Chapter 3) explores isomorphisms between narrative and voice-leading structures, and processes of tonicisation are investigated as instances of transvaluation. This scene is also considered from a broader cultural and historical context, informed by fin-de-siècle constructions of masculinity. The examination of masculinity is developed in an analysis of the ‘War Dance’ (Chapter 4), which also considers the broader significance of the god Pan.
Lyceion’s dance is contextualised as part of the contemporary ‘Salome craze’, and a close analytical reading of the ‘Pantomime’ (Chapter 5) draws out some of the more significant divorces between the narratives of the libretto and the music. Chloe emerges as a narrative subject in her own right, with Daphnis posited as narrative antisubject. Finally (Chapter 6), an analysis of Chloe’s ‘Danse suppliante’ examines the gendered connotations of the waltz. The readings proposed by these analyses suggest an emergent function for the music in Daphnis et Chloé, acting as a counter-discourse to the doxical narrative outlined by the libretto.

Many musical compositions from the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century retain some elements of functional tonality but abandon others. Most analytical methods are designed to address either tonal music or atonal music, but no single method completely illuminates this body of extended-tonal music. While both tonal and post-tonal theory have been extended in various ways to address this music, the use of tonal theory for analysis of this repertoire has not been completely formalized. The main obstacle for prolongational views of extended tonality is finding sufficient conditions for establishing that certain harmonies are structural in the absence of traditional harmonic function. In this regard, acoustical measures of stability, motivic connections, and chord equivalence all may form a part in determining the structural harmonies. Prolongational analyses of music may be represented by Schenkerian notation or transformational networks based on Lewin's Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (1987). This study explores a number of specific graphing techniques, including the diatonic lattice (Jones 2002), the just- intonation Tonnetz, and mod-12/mod-7 prolongational networks. After using group theory to explore the relationship of diatonic scale theory and tuning theory to transformational and prolongational analysis, excerpts from Wolf, Wagner, and Ravel are analyzed using mod-7 transformations. In giving support for prolongational analyses of chromatic and neo-tonal music, this study provides a case for tonality-based approaches to post-functional harmony.

This article develops analytical tools which illustrate temporal disruptions in the programmatic works for Debussy and Ravel and reshape traditional modes of sonata analysis. In Debussy, a new analytical paradigm, one that invokes his affinity for filmic techniques, is the aborted rondo‐sonata, which employs a post‐expositional breakthrough following an expositional disruption: a rondo form retrospectively morphs into a sonata following the breakthrough. For Ravel, the key analytical tool is what I call resetting of the formal compass (RFC): virtuosic passages, analogous to a formal Etch‐A‐Sketch as a reaction to the music having become ‘lost’ or ‘confused’, that restore formal consciousness. Previous scholarship on Ravel suggests the presence of arch form; the current theory permits an interpretation consistent with a linear, forward‐vectored thematic trajectory. Each of these concepts is based on sonata form's rotational structure, in which temporal fissures disrupt the order of thematic modules either by binding two non‐continuous thematic events or by neutralising formal function to resume thematic progress. When the analyses in are considered in tandem, they can help to build a unifying theory of fin‐de‐siècle French sonata forms.

Long considered to lie ‘light years’ apart, Ravel and Wagner actually have multiple
points of contact. Several appear in the comments Ravel made about the German composer in his articles, interviews and correspondence. Another is a previously unrecognised allusion to Parsifal in the Passacaille of Ravel’s Trio (1914), which he composed shortly after writing a review of the opera’s premiere in Paris. Additional Wagnerisms can be located in Daphnis et Chloe´ (1909–12) and L’Enfant et les sortile`ges (1920–5). More broadly, Wagner plays a central role in the ‘decadent dialectics’ of Ravel’s style.

İspanyol Folkloru, doğu ve batı kültürlerinin sentezi olarak nitelendirilebilir.Modlar ve ritm zenginliginin yanısıra İspanyol Çingenelerinin doğaçlama dans ve şarkı yöntemleri çok özel bir renk oluşturur.Bu renk, pek çok batılı büyük besteciye (Rus Beşleri v.b) ilham kaynağıdır, ama özgün gücünü özellikle İspanyol besteci ve piyanist Albéniz'in yapıtlarında bulur.19.Yüzyıl Nasyonalist Akımlarında önemli bir yere sahip bu yapıtların içinde en ustaca olanı şüphesiz Iberia Süiti'dir.İspanyol Folkloru ve çingene müziği bu süite rengini, ritmik çeşitliliğini ve melodik zenginliğini kazandırır.Armonize edilmiş, yerel şarkı ve danslar (collage) söz konusu değildir.Olağanüstü bir stilizasyonla, folklor büyük bir sanat olayına dönüştürülmüştür.
Bask kökenli Ravel için, İspanyol karakter ve rengini en artistik açıdan kullanan iki Fransız besteciden biri denebilir (diğeri Debussy).Empresyonizm ve Sembolizmin birleştiği Gaspard de la Nuit'de kötücül Scarbo şahane bir Flamenko gösterisi yapar.Süitin tamamına egemen olan atmosfer, Ortaçağ İspanyası'ndan izlenimler diye de nitelendirilebilir.
Iberia ve Gaspard de la Nuit gerçek anlamda süitler olarak tanımlanamazlar.Parçalar tek başına da seslendirilebilir.Sıralama önemli değildir.Her ikisinin diğer ortak özelliği Piyano Edebiyatının en zor virtüözite örnekleri olmalarıdır.
Anahtar sözcükler: İspanyol Folkloru, çingene müziği, Nasyonalist Akımlar, Empresyonizm, Sembolizm.

Méditation sur le rêve européen et russe de Kiev, et hommage à la capitale ukrainienne menacée par l’armée russe (18 mars 2022).

"Kiev belongs by right to the dreams of Europe, but we do not want Kiev to exist only in our dreams: we also want a real Kiev, a Kiev in reality”
Meditation on the European and Russian dream of Kiev, and tribute to the Ukrainian capital threatened by the Russian army (18 March 2022).

(Paper in Dutch!) Al in de titels van enkele bekende werken uit Maurice Ravels oeuvre zijn verwijzingen naar Spanje overduidelijk. Onder andere Rapsodie Espagnole, L’Heure Espagnole en Habanera  dragen een zuiders verlangen. Hoewel Ravel heel zijn leven in of nabij Parijs verbleef, werd zijn familiale achtergrond - zijn moeder was Baskisch - een vertrekpunt voor zijn interesse in Spanje. Ondanks de ingewikkelde relatie tussen het Baskenland en Spanje koesterde hij een liefde voor beiden en dat kwam tot uiting in zijn muziek. Tijdens de oriëntalistische belle epoque en in het multiculturele Parijs flirt Ravel met Spaanse ritmes, harmonieën, melodische figuren en verwijzingen naar gitaarstijlen of folklore dansvormen. Deze thesis neemt deze muzikale elementen onder de loep, contextualiseert ze en stelt ze in vraag.

Due concerti per pianoforte e orchestra, fra i più apprezzati del Novecento: apparentemente, composizioni il cui senso è espresso dalla stessa loro natura, nel solco di una tradizione secolare; in realtà opere multidirezionali in cui passato e presente, soggetto e oggetto si sovrappongono e finiscono per confondersi. L’autore fornisce al lettore un’analisi delle due dissomiglianti composizioni. Lo scopo del libro è tuttavia un altro: far dialogare la musica raveliana  e le sue ambiguità con lo scenario circostante, contraddistinto da suggestioni molteplici che spaziano dalla musica basca, al jazz, alla Grande Guerra, interrogandosi su concetti quali neoclassicismo e modernità.

Whether understood as the elevation of material to a higher state of aesthetic being or the redirection of the libido toward socially seemly ends, the concept of sublimation has played a central but underappreciated role in accounts of Ravel and his music over the past century. Similarly, Ravel’s identity as a dandy—who, according to Baudelaire, aspires to be “sublime without interruption”—has been mentioned consistently in biographical appraisals, but never deeply investigated. Incorporating a representation of the dandy’s genesis from the sublimation of desire, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé (1909–1912) offers the analyst an excellent opportunity to examine both entities in depth while also broaching
a variety of related topics: repression, queer sexuality, camp aesthetics, contemporary musical politics (dandyism versus d’Indyism), and theories of autobiography.

TO READ THE PREVIEW SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE PREVIEW SCROLL DOWN

The living symphony of life sounds from deep within the microphysical, representing the veritable completion of the fabled Great Chain of Being. This sketch from 2015 can be coordinated with a much more concrete, recent description of the fundamental physical system of living motion and psychical reality at issue (especially the chirality that deeply informs musical thematics) now to be found in the author's 'Carlyle and the Idea' (2018) at Academia.Edu, toward which interested readers of this rough sketch are directed as a kind of paved road ahead.

about the important solo flute in orchestra
Ravel _ “Daphnis & Chloé” Süit No: 2
Mendelssohn _ Scherzo “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” op: 21
Bizet _ Carmen Act III “Entr’acte” Süit No: 1
study of solo flute in this musical works & how to play it

In his fitting tribute and informative review of the performing career of Charles Rosen, "Versatile, Fearless Charles Rosen at the Piano" [NYR, April 7], Robert Winter offers an implausible and incorrect account of the recording history of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit (1908). He credits Walter Gieseking with the first commercial recording in 1937, Leonard Pennario with the second in 1952, and Rosen with the third in 1959. As my own limited CD collection features stellar performances of the Gaspard by the legendary French pianists Robert Casadesus (1899-1972), in a 1951 recording, Marcelle Meyer (1897-1958), from 1954, and Samson François (1924-1970), from 1958, it seems clear that Rosen cannot be credited as one of the recording pioneers of Ravel's great composition. Perhaps the first internationally renowned performer to record the Gaspard-discounting Ravel's own Duo-Art piano roll of 1922was the celebrated Russian virtuoso Mark Hambourg, also in 1922. For a fuller listing of historic recordings of this and other compositions by Ravel, I highly recommend Arbie Orenstein's illuminating study, Ravel: Man and Musician (1991, updated edition).

‘Gamme Chinoise: Pentatonic Writings in Early Twentieth-century Parisian Art Music’ unravels the musical cross-fertilisation between China and France through the lens of pentatonicism. Taking the characteristic pentatonic figure as its focal point, this study contends that the French reception of Chinese music goes beyond superficial chinoiserie and that the ‘pentatonic turn’ in French music serves to catalyse novel compositional strategies. The reconstruction of early twentieth-century Parisian perspectives within Chinese pentatonicism illuminates the intellectual and social backdrop to compositional practices bearing extra-musical associations with China through a selected repertoire: the appropriation of idiomatic figurations, and the pentatonicisation of harmonies. Crucial to the implicit dialectic in chinoiserie, the extended meaning of chinoise as being incomprehensible found expression in pentatonic-inspired inventions including Claude Debussy’s quartal tapestry (Le Palais du silence), Maurice Ravel’s ‘Chine’ chord (‘Asie’), Igor Stravinsky’s ‘leit-harmonie’ (Le Rossignol) and Florent Schmitt’s pentatonicised octatonic séries (‘Le parapluie chinois’). Drawing on a rich resource of archival materials, analytical findings and engagements with cultural issues in music theory, this thesis traces these four modernist composers’ Chinese musical sensibilities, uncovers the pivotal roles of their sinologist friends, and seeks to contribute to our understanding of pentatonicism as a sonic symbol of ‘China’ – exotic (in space), antique (in time), and primitive (in state).

《「中國音階」：二十世紀初葉巴黎藝術音樂中的五聲性創作考》從五聲技藝的角度剖析中、法兩地之間的音樂共冶。本研究以五聲旋律形的特徵作為焦點，探討法國音樂裡的「中國風情」、以至整個可謂「五聲導向」的風潮，論證「中國音樂」的微妙影響。迄二十世紀初葉巴黎學界對中國五聲技藝的認識及評價在本文得以重塑，當中所呈現的思想和社會脈絡，烘托出體現在精選曲目的創作手法：地道音型的借用、和聲的五聲化。作為「中國風情」內在矛盾的重要因素，「中國」在法語的延伸意思——極難懂的（形容詞）——表現於由五聲音階啓發的創新音響，包括德彪西的四度織錦（《沈默的宮廷》）、拉威爾的「中國」和弦（《亞洲》）、斯特拉文斯基的「主導和聲」（《夜鶯》）與施米特的五聲化八聲音列（《中華傘》）。論文的貢獻在於藉檔案資料梳理、中法樂譜分析和音樂理論涉及的文化議題討論，考證四位現代主義作曲家在中國音樂方面的鑒賞力，揭示漢學友人的關鍵角色，從而推敲五聲技藝展現的「中國」意象——遠異之地、太古之時、原始之態。