Ravel....

[ardcarp]

....one of my favourite composers, and it was mostly early and lesser-known stuff today (apart from the first movement of the SQ played on four Ondes Martenots!) There was one short piece entitled Entre Cloches inspired by church bells in Paris. Apparently it was originally written for a piano with two keyboards, one of which played normally (bass on the left, treble on the right) but the other one backwards. I assume it must have been one of those double grands where the players face each other....but how on earth was the music notated for the 'backwards' player? It was played on two normal grands today. Has anyone else heard of this?

[Serial_Apologist]

....one of my favourite composers, and it was mostly early and lesser-known stuff today (apart from the first movement of the SQ played on four Ondes Martenots!) There was one short piece entitled Entre Cloches inspired by church bells in Paris. Apparently it was originally written for a piano with two keyboards, one of which played normally (bass on the left, treble on the right) but the other one backwards. I assume it must have been one of those double grands where the players face each other....but how on earth was the music notated for the 'backwards' player? It was played on two normal grands today. Has anyone else heard of this?

I loved this first episode - the early Ravel appeals the most for me because his stuff written after the String Quartet seems to become increasingly locked into clichés the composer evolved to be both his hallmark and limitation, which he was only able to escape by adopting devices from his lesser successors: bitonality, pared textures, jazz rhythms and so on. I don't wish to decry the later Ravel - "L'enfant et les sortilèges", the second Violin Sonata and "Chansons Madécasses" were as good an anything by Poulenc, Milhaud, Ibert et al - but to argue that the language and techniques evolved before 1900 were as consistent and personal to Ravel as any great composer and sufficient unto themselves to have yielded an evolutionary pathway sui generis. This is what made Debussy, despite his earlier learning period meaning he had more current orthodoxy to overcome, the greater figure of the two men, notwithstanding several pianistic techniques he would adopt from Ravel.

Shouldn't this be in the COTW thread?

[ardcarp]

I thought it was...at least that's where I put it. Thanks for your insights! Yes Ravel's early work is fascinating.

On the subject of the piano which (according to the programme) had two keyboards, one which played backwards, I've done a bit of poking around on the internet, and, assisted by another Forum member have come up with the Pleyel Double Grand (a normal keyboard at each end) and the Emánuel Moór grand which has two keyboards (same end) arranged organ/harpsichord style. I wonder if the programme got its facts wrong? If anyone knows better, please tell!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I thought it was...at least that's where I put it. Thanks for your insights! Yes Ravel's early work is fascinating.

On the subject of the piano which (according to the programme) had two keyboards, one which played backwards, I've done a bit of poking around on the internet, and, assisted by another Forum member have come up with the Pleyel Double Grand (a normal keyboard at each end) and the Emánuel Moór grand which has two keyboards (same end) arranged organ/harpsichord style. I wonder if the programme got its facts wrong? If anyone knows better, please tell!

The Moór piano was a missed opportunity. Very few were made (including one by Steinway.

[ardcarp]

Tuesday's programme featured (nearly) two of my favourite Ravel works, the Introduction and Allegro and the String Quartet, wonderfully played by the Quatuor Ébène. Of the latter, only movts 2,3 and 4 were played, the first having been, rather weirdly done by four Ondes Martenots on Monday. (Why?)

The Introduction and Allegro was Ravel's showpiece for the new Erard chromatic harp, and I guess Ravel had to grasp the function of the seven pedals in order to produce his signature harmonic language. (For those who don't know, it is the Erard system which is now used in all concert harps, the Pleyel system, with two courses of strings, being unwieldy for obvious reasons.)

How stuffy the French 'establishment'...the Conservatoire/Prix de Rome etc must have been not to understand Ravel's genius.

I'm a day behind, so just about to catch up on Wednesday's COTW.

[Serial_Apologist]

Tuesday's programme featured (nearly) two of my favourite Ravel works, the Introduction and Allegro and the String Quartet, wonderfully played by the Quatuor Ébène. Of the latter, only movts 2,3 and 4 were played, the first having been, rather weirdly done by four Ondes Martenots on Monday. (Why?)

It seems from what we were told Ravel accepted it - I was minded of Messiaen's 1937 Fêtes des belles eaux, for four ondes, composed for a son et lumière festival, and a work far from devoid of Ravelian harmonic features.

The Introduction and Allegro was Ravel's showpiece for the new Erard chromatic harp, and I guess Ravel had to grasp the function of the seven pedals in order to produce his signature harmonic language. (For those who don't know, it is the Erard system which is now used in all concert harps, the Pleyel system, with two courses of strings, being unwieldy for obvious reasons.)

How stuffy the French 'establishment'...the Conservatoire/Prix de Rome etc must have been not to understand Ravel's genius.

I'm a day behind, so just about to catch up on Wednesday's COTW.

I was disappointed by the wind quintet version of Tombeau de Couperin, or what we were given from it, wondering what on earth the point given the essentialness of Ravel's gorgeous as ever orchestration; I would have preferred hearing the piano version. It was very sad hearing Ravel's poor assessment of his own string quartet, which was far from being derivative even though containing a few echoes of Borodin. The often played Piano sonatine of 1905, often considered its superior, is ime a poor work by comparison.

[Belgrove]

I thought I knew most of Ravel’s works, even the humdrum oratorios he produced for the Prix du Rome competition, but these programmes are presenting versions of pieces of which I was entirely unaware. I thought the transcription of the String Quartet’s first movement for ondes martenot an unexpected delight, a curio for sure, but not offensively or wilfully so. And the wind transcription of the Piano Trio worked rather better than the full orchestral version that surfaced a couple of decades ago. I’d like to hear all of it. The Metz Trio’s version of the work was especially appealing, which I shall seek out. Unlike SA I don’t necessarily value originality as a primary virtue. There are plenty of composers more original than Ravel, but who nevertheless lack his elegance, charm, and the sheer gorgeousness of his orchestration at every size of ensemble. The embodiment of those virtues are where Ravel’s inventiveness lies. This week’s CotW is an enhancing and essential listen.

[Alison]

I thought I knew most of Ravel’s works, even the humdrum oratorios he produced for the Prix du Rome competition, but these programmes are presenting versions of pieces of which I was entirely unaware. I thought the transcription of the String Quartet’s first movement for ondes martenot an unexpected delight, a curio for sure, but not offensively or wilfully so. And the wind transcription of the Piano Trio worked rather better than the full orchestral version that surfaced a couple of decades ago. I’d like to hear all of it. The Metz Trio’s version of the work was especially appealing, which I shall seek out. Unlike SA I don’t necessarily value originality as a primary virtue. There are plenty of composers more original than Ravel, but who nevertheless lack his elegance, charm, and the sheer gorgeousness of his orchestration at every size of ensemble. The embodiment of those virtues are where Ravel’s inventiveness lies. This week’s CotW is an enhancing and essential listen.

[Bryn]

It seems from what we were told Ravel accepted it - I was minded of Messiaen's 1937 Fêtes des belles eaux, for four ondes, composed for a son et lumière festival, and a work far from devoid of Ravelian harmonic features.

"four"? What about the other two, or were you thinking of the rejigging of L'eau for the Quatuor pour le fin de temps?

[Serial_Apologist]

"four"? What about the other two, or were you thinking of the rejigging of L'eau for the Quatuor pour le fin de temps?

No - you are right on both counts, too.

[Serial_Apologist]

Fascinating just now to be hearing Ravel's orchestration of Debussy's Sarabande from Pour le piano, and wondering his its own composer might have done it - this being one of the many differences aesthetically between the two, another being Ravel's tendency towards expanded rounded off melodies when Debussy would characteristically change directions in mid flow: Impressionism par excellence. My own thought is that Debussy would probably have scored the opening passage similarly to the beginning of his Le martyr, and would have found another way of coping with the octave doubled climax than thickening up with strings in all registers - possibly using subtle doublings with brass, contrabass and bass clarinets in their low registers. Ravel could score exquisitely - my best examples would be in Ma mère l'oye and the nocturnal garden scene in L'enfant et les sortilèges - but while Vaughan William's could well have differed from his friend Holst's description of the scoring of the Valses nobles et sentimentales as "tawdry" - he having benefitted from his study with Ravel and Gustav having himself clearly profited from Daphnis in Venus from The Planets - Ravel could sometimes be charged with over-adornment.