Ravel

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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Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin”: Paavo Järvi and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra

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Maurice Ravel completed the solo piano suite, Le Tombeau de Couperin, in 1917 amid the devastation of the First World War. The 17th century word, tombeau, refers to “a piece written as a memorial.” Ravel dedicated each of the suite’s movements to the memory of a friend who was lost in the war. Yet, there is nothing somber or elegiac about this music. The bleak, mechanized dehumanization of the twentieth century battlefield is left …

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Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Poulenc: Three Twentieth Century Pastorales

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With roots in the Baroque period, the musical pastorale evokes a serene, bucolic landscape. Often, it rolls along in a gentle 6/8 time and suggests the simple, free-floating melodies and drones of a shepherd’s bagpipes. J.S. Bach’s Pastorella In F Major, BWV 590 for organ, the final movement of Corelli’s “Christmas” Concerto, and the Pastoral Symphony from Handel’s Messiah are famous examples. The sound world of the twentieth century was dominated by …

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