Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937) Bolero Daphnis et Chloe (Suite No.1) Valses nobles et sentimentales Ma mère l'oye Maurice Ravel, in common with other great...
Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937)
Bolero
Daphnis et Chloe (Suite No.1)
Valses nobles et sentimentales
Ma mère l'oye
Maurice Ravel, in common with other great
composers, uses a musical language that is instantly recognisable, whether
in the sparer textures of music that recalls classical and earlier traditions,
in his innovative writing for the piano or his colourful use of the modern
orchestra. He was born in Ciboure in the Basses Pyrenees in 1875, the son of an
engineer of Swiss ancestry and a mother who came from the Basque country. From
his father he acquired an interest in things mechanical and a certain
meticulous precision in his music and in his personal habits, while from his
mother he inherited an affinity with Spain and a familiarity with the language
of that country, an element reflected in some of his compositions.
Ravel entered the Paris Conservatoire in
1889, but was to fail to win there the distinction and the necessary prizes
that his abilities deserved. He withdrew in 1895 but returned in 1897 to study
composition with Gabriel Faure, a sympathetic teacher, who had succeeded
Massenet at the Conservatoire the year before, after the death of his
implacable opponent Ambroise Thomas.
By the early years of the present century
Ravel had begun to earn a reputation for himself as a composer, in spite of the
hostility of certain critics. He was to fail, however, to win the Important
Prix de Rome, the rejection of his final entry in 1905 causing a public scandal
that led to the resignation of the director of the Conservatoire, who was
succeeded by Faure. Instead he continued to gain ground against his opponents
in the musical and critical establishment, and in 1909 was commissioned by the
Russian impresario Sergey Dyagilev to write the score for the ballet Daphnis
et Chloe, staged in 1912.
During the war years Ravel served as a
transport driver, his lack of weight excluding him from the more active form of
military service he would have preferred. Illness and the death of his mother
in 1916 both diminished his activity as a composer, but by 1920 he had
completed, at the prompting of Dyagilev, the choreographic poem La Valse and
had started work on the operatic collaboration with Colette that resulted in
the delightful L'enfant et les sortileges, in which elements of Ravel's
various interests combine.
The death of Debussy in 1918, followed
six years later by the death of his teacher Faure, left Ravel as the leading
French composer in the eyes of his contemporaries. There were to be various
commissions and the establishment of an international reputation that brought
him honour abroad and the offer of the Legion d'honneur at home, a distinction
he rejected. His career was tragically shortened by the increasingly
debilitating effects of what was later diagnosed as Pick's disease. He died in
1937 after an unsuccessful brain operation.
Ma mère l'oye
was originally written as a suite of Mother Goose nursery tales for piano duet
to entertain the children of Ravel's friend Cipa Godebskl. It was orchestrated
and extended as a ballet score in 1911, the year after its composition. The
suite opens with Sleeping Beauty, followed by Hop-o'-my-thumb, with his trail
of breadcrumbs leading through the forest. Laideronette is Empress of tiny
oriental insect-musicians. Thereafter Beauty converses with the Beast, and the
work ends in a fairy garden.
The ballet Daphnis et Chloe was
eventually completed in 1912 and is described as a choreographic symphony. The
story of the work is taken from the Hellenistic writer Longus and concerns the
abduction of the shepherdess Chloe by pirates and her eventual rescue by her
lover Daphnis. The first of the two suites derived from the complete ballet
opens with a Nocturne, in which nymphs dance after the defeat in dance of the
rival of Daphnis. The Interlude precedes the appearance of a band of pirates,
whose war-like dance concludes the suite.
The Valses nobles et sentimentales
were originally written for piano and orchestrated in 1912 as a ballet for
Natalia Trouhanova. The eight short dances, modelled on the example of
Schubert, were, for the purposes of ballet, given the title Adelaide or Le
langage des fleurs, with a story to match, and evoke a nostalgic feeling
for a world that was passing, even in their apparently triumphant bitter-sweet
conclusion.
Ravel wrote the orchestral tour de force
Bolero in 1928 for the dancer Ida Rubinstein, describing it on one occasion as
an orchestrated crescendo and on another as "une blague" and yet
again as "vide de musique". It is based on the insistent drum rhythm
of an invented Spanish dance and won immediate popularity.
Czechoslovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
(Bratislava)
The Czechoslovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
(Bratislava), the oldest symphonic ensemble in Slovakia, was founded in 1929 at
the instance of Milos Ruppeldt and Oskar Nedbal, prominent personalities in the
sphere of music. Ondrej Lenard was appointed its conductor in 1970 and in 1977
its conductor-in-chief. The orchestra has given successful concerts both at
home and abroad, in West and East Germany, Russia, Bulgaria, Denmark, France,
Spain, Italy, and Great Britain.
Kenneth Jean
Associate Conductor of the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Florida Symphony Orchestra,
Kenneth Jean is a young conductor making his presence known both nationally and
internationally. Born in New York City, he grew up in Hong Kong and returned to
the United States in 1967 to live in San Francisco. After violin studies at San
Franciso State University, he entered the Juilliard School at the age of 19 and
was accepted into the conducting class of Jean Morel. The following year, he
made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of New York and
was immediately engaged as the orchestra's Music Director.
Kenneth Jean made his European debut in
1980 at the International Festival of Youth Orchestras in Aberdeen, Scotland
and has since returned regularly. Other orchestras he has conducted Include the
St. Louis Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra
of the Swiss Radio, Park Theatre Orchestra of Stockholm, the Belgrade Strings
and the South West German Radio Orchestra of Baden-Baden at the Donaueschingen
Festival of Contemporary Music. He was awarded the 1983-84 Leopold Stokowski
Conducting Award by the American Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted that
orchestra on various occasions, including a subscription concert in Carnegie
Hall.
From 1979 until 1985 Kenneth Jean served
as Resident Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Previously, he was the
Conducting Assistant of the Cleveland Orchestra for two seasons.
He has recorded works by Mendelssohn,
Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Falla, Albniz and Ravel for Naxos, and Chinese
contemporary works for HK.