Ravel’s Rapsodie Espagnole: Color, Atmosphere, and Dance
Maurice Ravel, the quintessential French musical impressionist, was the son of a Swiss engineer-inventor father and a mother of Basque-Spanish heritage. The Basque influence can be heard throughout Ravel’s music. Nowhere is it more vibrantly on display than in Rapsodie espagnole, completed in 1908. Manuel de Falla praised the four-movement orchestral suite as “surprising one by its Spanish character, achieved through the free use of the modal rhythms and melodies and ornamental …