Ravel

Ravel’s Pavane pour une Infante Défunte: A Dreamy Evocation

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A stately, processional dance, the pavane was popular in European courts throughout the Renaissance. With dreamy nostalgia, Maurice Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte (“Pavane for a Dead Princess”) evokes visions of these distant times. The brief work was composed in 1899 for solo piano, and orchestrated in 1910. Ravel chose the title because he liked the sound of the words. He insisted, Do not attach any importance to the title. I …

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Ravel’s Boléro: Robert Treviño and the Basque National Orchestra

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“Ravel is commonly understood as a French composer, but to us he is a French-Basque composer,” says Robert Treviño, Music Director of Spain’s Basque National Orchestra. As a child, Ravel heard Spanish folk songs, sung to him by his mother, who was of Basque heritage, and who grew up in Madrid. This early influence is evident throughout Ravel’s works. Now, a Spanish orchestra, led by a Mexican-American conductor who grew up in …

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Ravel’s Vocalise-Étude en forme de Habanera: A “Haunting Andalusian Cantilena”

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Maurice Ravel’s Vocalise-étude en forme de Habanera is a magically evocative technical study for mezzo-soprano voice. The dreamy, ephemeral song without words has been described as a “nostalgic and haunting Andalusian cantilena.” (Vladimir Jankélévitch) Ravel composed this music in March of 1907 during the time he was working on Rapsodie espagnole. It was commissioned by Amédée-Louis Hettich, a voice professor at the Paris Conservatory who approached numerous prominent composers, asking each to …

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Ravel’s Rapsodie Espagnole: Color, Atmosphere, and Dance

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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 …

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Remembering Seiji Ozawa

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Seiji Ozawa, the internationally renowned Japanese conductor, passed away in Tokyo last week (February 6, 2024) as a result of heart failure. He was 88. Ozawa’s 29-year tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra began in 1973. Prior to the appointment, he served as music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1965-1969) and the San Francisco Symphony (1970-1977). In 1984, he founded the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Matsumoto, Japan. In …

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Ravel’s “L’Heure Espagnole”: An Enchanting One-Act Comédie Musicale

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Maurice Ravel’s 1911 comic opera in one act, L’heure espagnole, is a hilariously enchanting farce. Its literal title, “The Spanish Hour,” can be more accurately translated as “Spanish Time,” or “How They Keep Time in Spain.” The libretto by Franc-Nohain is based on a 1904 play by the same author. Set in eighteenth century Spain, the plot of L’heure espagnole centers around Concepción, the restless and lusty wife of a preoccupied clockmaker …

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Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major: Lighthearted, Brilliant, and Bluesy

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With the slap of a whip, Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major springs to life. Suddenly, a magically intricate machine is propelled into motion. With the solo piano in its twinkling highest register, a toy soldier march in the piccolo, delicate string pizzicati and harmonics, and the almost imperceptible whir of the snare drum, we are whisked into an enchanting world of innocence and imagination. In these glistening opening bars, we …

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