From enticing myths about what’s been said about it to Ravel’s own oscillation between despair and gratitude for the work and try to unpack its irresistible intrigue and enduring popularity A lot of myths swirl around Ravel’s Boléro That a woman in the audience at the premiere yelled A madman!” (to which the composer responded “She’s understood the piece.”) That Ravel himself called it “my only masterpiece” in correspondence to Swiss composer Arthur Honegger That the piece’s success (in the face of apparently plenty of criticism) made him so wealthy, in life or literally, that when he walked into a casino in Monte-Carlo he turned down conductor Paul Paray’s invitation to have a go at gambling. “I wrote Boléro, and won,” Ravel is supposed to have said That Ravel bemoaned the conductor who gave the work its US premiere to which the conductor had the retort: “it was the only way to save the work.” That a performance of the work begins every 10 minutes somewhere in the world How much these anecdotes have been warped and augmented through history But it’s undeniable that there is just something about this work that holds our attention – be it the piece’s history or the maddeningly brilliant music itself What did Ravel mean to say with such a repetitive work or did he really hate his own piece of music Was it always meant to so suddenly be injected with jazz notes What is the meaning of it building so incrementally to a climax really defies the rules of orchestral music Let’s dive into the madness (a maybe not) of it all Four cellists play Ravel’s Bolero on just one instrument credited with being one of the composers to really develop and establish impressionism in music studied along the path of Paris Conservatoire enrolment Ravel studied with composer Gabriel Fauré and non-conformist (he rejected Wagnerianism which was considered the orchestral pinnacle in those days and arguably still is today) and he soon lost favour with the Conservatoire his methods irritating the institution’s then Director he built his career up to the point of being one of France’s most famous composers known for his rich orchestral writing (Pavane pour une infante défunte for his gorgeous impressionistic music for ballet (Daphnis and Chloé) He was unquestionably an incredible master of melody – just listen to Pavane pour une infante défunte And of course Boléro demonstrates Ravel’s mastery of melody relying on just one – and mainly just that – as it does The piece slotted into a time when Ravel was about to embark on an incredibly successful tour of the United States Europe was a decade into recovery from the devastation of the First World War with the excesses of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ and neighbouring Germany’s decadent Weimar Republic at full health Jazz was getting into full swing and flowing through Europe influencing the culture of music and dance Ravel was probably France’s most famous living composer building a career that would mark him one of the country’s most famous composers to ever live The story of Ravel’s Boléro starts with a commission by ballet dancer Ida Rubinstein Rubinstein was a very well known Russian dancer and she performed with Diaghilev's famous Ballets Russes from 1909 to 1911 Ravel planned to create an orchestral version of Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz’s piano work but the hitch was that the rights to the piece had already been granted to someone else: to the Spanish conductor Enrique Arbós “My whole summer’s ruined,” Ravel declared evidently before knowing the conductor would actually be happy to give up the rights “Orchestrating Iberia was going to be so much fun Arbós did eventually give Ravel the rights but not before the composer had already started an original piece of music from scratch and a real pioneer of asking questions of form in music Ravel had long toyed with the idea of building a composition from a single theme which would grow simply through harmonic and instrumental ingenuity The Boléro melody apparently came to him when he was on holiday in Saint-Jean-de-Luz in France when he called a friend over to the piano and asked: “Don’t you think that has an insistent quality?” Fateful words “I’m going to try to repeat it a number of times without any development gradually increasing the orchestra as best I can.” The essence of Ravel’s famous Boléro was born “Once the idea of using only one theme was discovered,” he said “any conservatory student could have done as well,” and he completed the orchestral piece relatively quickly characterised by strongly rhythmic qualities to the music The composer had found a single musical idea to twist to turn – and to gradually turn up in an ingenious orchestral crescendo – for Ida Rubinstein’s dancers to dance to Watch these striking ballet dancers revolutionise Ravel's Boléro Ravel’s Boléro premiered at the Paris Opéra on 22 November 1928 with choreography by Polish dancer and choreographer Bronislava Nijinska and scenario by Alexandre Benois who had a background with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes like Ida Rubinstein people dance beneath the brass lamp hung from the ceiling,” the printed program at the premiere read the female dancer has leapt onto the long table and her steps become more and more animated.” The Opéra’s orchestra was conducted by Walther Straram the piece’s premiere was an unreserved success There was shouting and stamping from the audience the sure sign at any classical music performance of an impressive impact on the audience patrons were perhaps more divided than this read on things suggests It’s told that a woman shouted about it being the work of a mad man from the audience Ravel has been recorded as all but agreeing and in its repetitive to both reflect and bring about madness that it has “no form in the true sense of the word and that’s what history documents as the plan from the outset And nothing happens after we first hear the famous circular tune of the Boléro; it just keeps going and going until that slightly bizarre brass flourish that finishes it off Two main melodic ideas are repeated 18 times There’s no harmonic or melodic development to speak of The piece is written in C major – all the white notes on the piano – with some E major Boléro features a drum beat that’s repeated 169 times but there is something frustrating – something maddening – about it and the build up from solo flute through to full orchestra through the same melody over and over again So the controversy is in the experimentalism – and also simplicity – of the piece itself Its simplicity adds to the mystery and intrigue when taken in the context of all of Ravel’s works Here’s a man with so many colours in his music and so many exquisite orchestral complexities and shades at his disposal – just listen to the sparkling music for Daphnis and Chloé – and for Rubinstein’s commission he chose to do away with all of that and opt for simplicity and constraint Constraint to the extent of a straight jacket if we’re to follow the line of thinking about ‘madness’ of that outspoken woman in the audience at the premiere Viewed in the context of its origins as a work for dance it should also be remembered that the choreography and staging of Boléro contributed to any controversy around it and would have pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable at the Opéra in its day Hayato Sumino plays virtuosic Ravel Boléro on two pianos It is unlikely Ravel expected Boléro to become as instantly famous as it did and his inclination seems to be to downplay any merit it might have In an interview with The Daily Telegraph at the time he said: “I am particularly desirous there should be no misunderstanding about this work It constitutes an experiment in a very special and limited direction and should not be suspected of aiming at achieving other or more than it actually does.” He liked the piece when he first composed it asking his friend “Don’t you think that has an insistent quality?” It certainly stuck that “any conservatory student could have done as well.” He wasn’t criticising the piece’s simplicity – in fact he used the wording “done as well” – and instead was just being objective about the piece’s simplicity there’s the anecdote about the Monte-Carlo gambling parlour; that Ravel didn’t need to try out gambling because he already had with his Boléro and that it had paid off High self-praise from a musical high-roller He played with forms and this was him playing with forms He just very likely never expected the piece to generate as much instant buzz and to remain so enduringly popular – even after his death – as it has The Boléro has a tongue-in-cheek quality to it; so does Ravel’s own words about it including in arrangement for piano solo and piano duet It was premiered by famous conductor Arthur Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic in 1929 to wide acclaim of the music makes it memorable and catchy militaristic backing beat from the opening Specifically that melody’s ability to go around and then the bassoon comes in to develop the melody adding those iconic repeated stabs that create tension in the otherwise monotonous tune And then we get those delicious bassy concluding notes they’re all elements – a repeated hook or beat repetitive formula – we find in iconic and popular music of our own day These qualities have made the piece ripe for capturing the imagination of influential elements in popular culture, including Hollywood and other iconic forums. When Olympic ice skaters Torvill and Dean used the music for their routine and scooped Gold at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics the piece became etched into the minds of a whole new generation of people Ravel’s Boléro has featured in a 1934 film about a coal miner who dreams of being a dancer which It was also used in Blake Edwards’ 1979 film, 10, about a lyricist’s midlife crisis, staring Dudley Moore, Julie Andrews a film about the plight of the percussionist of any Ravel Boléro And the music has featured in many adverts including the opening ceremonies of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2024 Paris Paralympics See more Ravel features Discover Music Einaudi Events It has been a busy couple of weeks for marathons in London A few days before runners took to the tarmac the pianist Igor Levit took on Erik Satie’s Vexations — a short piece to be performed 840 times Seong-Jin Cho played the complete solo piano works of another French musical adventurer Levit’s performance ran for 13 hours; Cho’s lasted three physical and mental — an increasingly sweaty Cho played entirely from memory — the “Ravel-athon” may have been the more extreme endurance event Cho has also been touring the programme internationally since January Running through the pieces chronologically the concert faithfully followed the recording Cho The first page of Maurice Ravel’s “Sémiramis” manuscript Photo courtesy of Bibliothèque Nationale de France In Wednesday’s (3/12) New York Times “The conductor Gustavo Dudamel has premiered dozens of pieces in his career But the score that he was giddily studying on a recent afternoon at Lincoln Center was different: a nearly 125-year-old piece by the French composer Maurice Ravel that had only recently surfaced in a Paris library… Dudamel and the Philharmonic will give the world premiere of the five-minute piece as part of a program celebrating the 150th birthday of Ravel … The newly found piece ‘Sémiramis: Prélude et Danse,’ was written sometime between 1900 and 1902 when Ravel was in his late 20s and sparring with administrators at the Paris Conservatory from an unfinished cantata about the Babylonian queen Semiramis reveals a young musician still honing his voice … The manuscript includes an aria for tenor and orchestra that the Philharmonic will not perform; the Orchestre de Paris will premiere that section in December … ‘Sémiramis’ is a coup for the New York Philharmonic … It is rare to uncover unpublished works by major composers , the award-winning publication of the League of American Orchestras discusses issues critical to the orchestra community and communicates to the American public the value and importance of orchestras and the music they perform But it was really about a Venezuelan in New York Gustavo Dudamel made a rare visit to his orchestra-to-be Thursday night energetically leading the New York Philharmonic in works by Varèse The occasion was of course attended by fanfares from a police siren in Varèse’s Amériques to taxi horns in Gershwin’s French travelogue pairing the much-admired conductor and future music director of the Philharmonic with the even more popular Chinese-American pianist Yuja Wang performing both of Ravel’s piano concertos on the same program The French composer was born 150 years ago last Friday Adding still more luster to the occasion was the world premiere of a recently discovered fragment by Ravel the Prélude et Danse from a projected cantata the Philharmonic replaced the concertos on the program with two familiar Ravel pieces for orchestra the Suite from Ma Mère l’Oye and the Suite No The Sémiramis music was unveiled as scheduled which is still Dudamel’s base for a little longer a frequently heard question about actors is “Can he carry the show?”  The answer Thursday was yes attentive direction of Amériques kept that famously cacophonous piece on track The immense orchestra reveled in the sudden crescendos and stuttering rhythms the first piece he composed after arriving in his adopted home country as if to indicate the music was not simply an Ivesian street scene or even a portrait of one nation Even the notorious siren was there not as a touch of local color but as a musical instrument of infinitely variable pitch not limited to the 12 notes of the chromatic scale Like the many composers whom this piece influenced Dudamel focused on Amériques as a composition and for once Varèse’s musical intentions came through as clearly as that howling siren Anything that could successfully follow Amériques would have to be something completely different and it’s hard to imagine anything more different than Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite originally composed for two children to play at one piano The composer’s luminous orchestration used about a third as many players as Varèse did but achieved effects from infinitely tender to dazzling and rose to real splendor in the closing movement The conductor was in “Uncle Gustavo” mode throughout gently shaping the “Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty,” “Tom Thumb” and “Conversations of Beauty and the Beast,” and enjoying the racket of Chinese-style percussion in “Laideronette The European fascination in that era with cultures to the east also gave rise to this program’s novelty item apparently with an eye on the Prix de Rome competition at the Paris Conservatoire a read-through in the orchestra class of Paul Taffanel and then lay inexplicably unperformed for another 20 like all the others on the program except Amériques emphasizing the deep gloom of the opening pages for low instruments and the oriental percussion that a contemporary observer noticed in that long-ago performance under Taffanel like other young French composers of that era felt the eastward pull of Russian composers such as Borodin and Balakirev But Sémiramis also seemed to bear the stamp of Bizet’s Carmen in its bold string phrasing impassioned cello solo and persistent habanera rhythm At five minutes’ duration and more of a curiosity than a major addition to the Ravel canon it at least offered a glimpse of a future master emerging from his conservatory cocoon The orchestra’s ranks swelled again for the spectacular Daphnis et Chloë suite No doubt it was orchestral virtuosity on this level that inspired Gershwin to request composing lessons from Ravel who famously advised the young American to compose “good Gershwin” instead of “bad Ravel.” was pleased to display its own virtuosity in the watery ripple of woodwinds the glowing brass and the soaring strings of the ballet’s “Daybreak” movement Tender solos for flute and violin contrasted with robust strings in the lovers’ “Pantomime.”  And Dudamel drove his fast machine to the limit with whirling winds and rat-a-tat percussion How was the would-be pupil going to follow that?  Ravel might have said although the excitement of Daphnis may have caused him to push the tempo of the American’s Parisian ramble a little too hard at first (“A New Yorker in Paris,” said my companion.) But one was pleased at last to kick back and savor the piece’s indelible “nostalgia” theme—lonely in a solo trumpet triumphant in the closing moments—and to tap along with a jazzy dance that popped up out of nowhere Gershwin came along a year later and composed An American in Paris And that Franco-American spaghetti came full circle The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. nyphil.org XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong> Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value"  Subscribe via RSS Maurice Ravel was hailed around the world as France’s greatest living composer when he embarked on his first trip to North America His fourth-month tour was a whirlwind: Ravel visited 25 cities conducting virtually every major American orchestra and meeting everywhere with rapturous approval But the most fateful outcome of the trip was his firsthand exposure to jazz It left a profound impression on Ravel’s music which eventually inspired jazz musicians in turn Jazz was deliriously popular in 1928, though by no means considered a “serious” music. In New York, Ravel saw the hit Gershwin musical Funny Face on Broadway, and was charmed enough to inquire about meeting George Gershwin and hearing his Rhapsody in Blue at a birthday party for Ravel organized by mezzo-soprano Èva Gauthier Gershwin dazzled the guest of honor with Rhapsody and also played and sang his song “The Man I Love.”) Over the next few nights to Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom and Cotton Club where he experienced the elegant excitement of the Duke Ellington Orchestra He also paid a visit to the Victor recording studios in Liederkranz Hall for a session by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra Ravel had shown a burgeoning interest in African-American popular music a decade earlier, when he borrowed elements of ragtime for his 1919 opera L'enfant et les sortilèges. (Hear the comic exchange between a cup and a teapot in the song called “How’s Your Mug?”) But what he encountered in New York — and in Chicago where he’d been enraptured by the New Orleans clarinetist Jimmie Noone whose band featured Earl “Fatha” Hines on piano — ignited the fire and fervor of a convert “I think you know that I greatly admire and value — more, I think, than many American composers — American jazz,” Ravel had said that February, in an expansive interview with the New York Times critic Olin Downes He added: “I am waiting to see more Americans appear with the honesty and vision to realize the significance of their popular product and the technic [sic] and imagination to base an original and creative art upon it.” The French composer rearticulated this view — with an unmistakable whiff of Gallic condescension — in an article titled “Take Jazz Seriously!” for the March 1928 issue of Musical Digest “You Americans take jazz too lightly,” he scolded it is bound to lead to the national music of the United States Aside from it you have no veritable idiom as yet.” Ravel voiced the same convictions in an April lecture at Rice University and in subsequent interviews and correspondence “I have used jazz idioms in my last violin and piano sonata,” Ravel told Downes in the Times I cannot possibly feel it as I would if I were an American.” Ravel’s Violin Sonata No does in fact refract jazz’s influence through an impressionist lens — most clearly in the second movement simply (and somewhat inaccurately) titled “Blues.” (It’s more of a rag.) But the more impactful borrowing transpired just after his American sojourn — in Boléro an orchestral piece that became his best-loved work Boléro famously consists of just two 18-bar melodic motifs, developed in repetition. It’s been said that Ravel based one of these, most likely the more syncopated second theme, on a clarinet improvisation by Jimmie Noone. (This claim was, at least, printed in Noone’s 1944 obituary in the New York Times.) Whether the inspiration was direct or circuitous there can be no mistaking the jazz inflection in the piece which builds to a climax of braying trombones Ravel also brought jazz phrasing and bitonality into some of his more complex creations notably his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand commissioned by the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein who had lost his right arm in the first World War Ravel described the piece’s rollicking second movement as “an episode like an improvisation which is followed by a jazz section Only afterward is one aware that the jazz episode is actually built up from the themes of the first section.” was similarly suffused with jazz syncopation and blues inflection It also suggests the influence of his new friend and colleague whose Rhapsody in Blue haunts the periphery of the opening “Allegramente” movement Jazz also leaps back into frame toward the end of the piece generations of classical pianists have found their way to jazz-like expression — everyone from Martha Argerich with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1987 to Seong-Jin Cho with the Boston Symphony Orchestra There are, to be clear, limitations to Ravel’s understanding of jazz, which provoked the well-founded skepticism of critical observers like the French violinist and musicologist André Hodeir. For one thing, Ravel exhibited scant awareness of a figure as foundational as Louis Armstrong he looked to jazz as a “picturesque” accent He seemed to conflate the music of Black originators with concertized translations by the likes of Gershwin and Whiteman the composer Gunther Schuller carped that Ravel “made the error of regarding jazz instrumentation and jazz sonority as the primary ingredients and completely disregarded such aspects as improvisation or the inflection and swing of jazz.” But if the composer’s enthusiasm was imbalanced Ravel’s engagement with jazz gives as much as it takes,” writes Deborah Mawer in her insightful 2014 book French Music and Jazz in Conversation: From Debussy to Brubeck his late works from Boléro to the piano concertos.” And of course jazz got its share out of the exchange as well Kind of Blue, which Miles Davis released on Columbia Records in 1959, is the best-selling jazz album of all time, and widely understood as the most iconic. And it’s unimaginable without the influence of Ravel. Listen to how the album begins, with an impressionistic a tempo figure for Paul Chambers’ bass and Bill Evans’ piano no more hurried in its drift than a plume of smoke a pianist deeply enamored of certain Romantic and Impressionist composers had introduced Davis to the possibilities inherent in Ravel’s music (and even turned him on to specific Ravel interpreters like the Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli) Writing about Kind of Blue in his autobiography Davis recalled that “because we were into Ravel (especially his Concerto for the Left Hand and Orchestra) and Rachmaninoff (Concerto No all of that was up in there somewhere.” Of particular interest was Ravel’s exploration of the Dorian mode As Davis recalled: “We were just leaning toward — like Ravel playing a sound only with the white keys.” There are other notable classical influences on Kind of Blue — the opening of “Flamenco Sketches,” which Evans adopted from his “Peace Piece,” triangulated Bernstein Chopin and Messiaen — but Ravel is the shining constant even the famous bass ostinato in “All Blues” bears a close resemblance to the four-note contrabassoon figure that opens the Concerto for the Left Hand “Evans’s opening piano material comprises a simple tremolo oscillation where another Ravelian connection (this time Tin Pan Alley also took a few cues from Ravel when Peter DeRose and Bert Shefter adapted elements of his Pavane pour une infante défunte in order to write “The Lamp is Low.” (The original sheet music is clear about this debt of influence: “Based on a theme from Maurice Ravel’s PAVANE,” reads a tagline under the song title.) “The Lamp is Low,” with lyrics by Mitchell Parish became a standard soon after Mildred Bailey first recorded it in 1939 with hit versions by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra though the core influence stands regardless Speaking of bridges, a less ambiguous example of Ravel’s influence is “Chelsea Bridge,” which Billy Strayhorn composed for the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1941 based the song on a chordal development in which the major seventh avoids resolving to the tonic As the Dutch musicologist Walter van de Leur has argued this “parallel movement of tonally independent chords” is in part a nod to Ravel’s Valses Nobles et Sentimentales Ellington — who had no doubt impressed Ravel at the Cotton Club — borrowed reciprocally in his effort to forge a Black American music that could stand alongside the European canon. His 1937 piece “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue,” which later delivered popular resurgence and cultural capital after a live performance at the 1954 Newport Jazz Festival the piece “might conceivably be viewed as an equivalent of Ravel’s experimentation with volume whose “Ravel Prelude” from a 1969 album is a head-spinning act of homage When pianist Herbie Hancock started working on his Oscar-winning score to the Bertrand Tavernier film ‘Round Midnight “my mind went right to the harmonies of the great French composer Maurice Ravel.” Writing in his biography Hancock adds: “Over the years I had often used Ravel’s harmonies in my music and they were also used in popular music of the early twentieth century.” Hancock later included a performance of the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G on his 1998 album Gershwin’s World In more recent years, pianist Aaron Diehl — a sterling interpreter of classical music as well as jazz — recorded a sparkling trio arrangement of the “Forlane” movement from Le Tombeau De Couperin on his 2013 debut The 2015 Blue Note Records compilation Supreme Sonacy Vol 1 included a hip-hop reimagining of Jeux D’eau by the producer Terry Slingbaum with Eldar Djangirov on piano and a small cohort of strings And in 2018, American trombonist Ryan Keberle teamed up with French pianist Frank Woeste, in a jointly led group called Reverso, to create Suite Ravel “I think that Ravel’s harmony probably influenced jazz musicians more than the other way around,” Keberle mused in an interview with The Jazz Gallery what he found interesting about jazz is its sense of rhythm I also think Ravel was attracted to jazz’s blending of musical cultures the way that it drew from disparate worlds and found ways for them to coexist in one setting.” That blending can also be described as a borrowing and what the music makes clear is that for Ravel beginning on March 4th throughout America and Europe are continuing; some of the program handouts must have noted that while Ravel is seldom mentioned in college music history courses nearly all of his surviving compositions have remained popular on concert and recital programs ever since his death in 1937 No other composer since Chopin has brought forth such a high proportion of major work and almost every note that he composed since 1895 has been published and remained in print (I still have a copy of the rarely heard Frontispice [sic] for piano five hands Ravel went beyond Debussy in his originality of tonal harmony, unmatched by any other composer in the 20th century or since; his discoveries in that realm, especially chromatic harmony, are enormous, and have been expropriated freely and completely by three generations of Hollywood composers, pop songwriters, and jazz originals. See right below Ravel’s two operas are masterpieces of stagecraft but what they do for musical form is even more impressive; they essentially raise the chamber-opera aesthetic to monumentality in less than an hour and eliminate the function of the big-name singer Perhaps the pairing of l’Heure espagnole and l’Enfant et les sortilèges has already set a full-evening standard that will displace Cav and Pag; the unparalleled magic is all there Ravel’s craftsmanship is likewise unmatched and his scores well-nigh perfect in graphic form notwithstanding that his publishers didn’t always keep track (it’s worth mentioning the example of Gaspard de la nuit one of the greatest monuments of piano music composed 1908; the Durand score is still in print and reprint with all the errors in the original edition [1909] remaining uncorrected notes 60 of them; to see an accurate score of this work get the Peters edition edited by Roger Nichols) Ravel failed for the third and last time to win the Grand Prix de Rome as a composer A political upheaval at the Conservatoire followed but which enabled him to take a vacation and to compose the thoroughly lovable Introduction and Allegro 1 Comment » Categories News & Features 1 Comment [leave a civil comment (others will be removed) and please disclose relevant affiliations]Very fine article Comment by Franklin Stover — March 23 RSS feed for comments on this post. If you would like to contribute articles or reviews to the Intelligencer, please familiarize yourself with our submission guidelines.  Subscribe to the Intelligencer. 0.97);}@media (min-width:1024px){.css-1j5gzzj{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.55;}}.css-1cbf1l2{height:0;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:height 300ms cubic-bezier(0.4 1) 0ms;transition:height 300ms cubic-bezier(0.4 1) 0ms;height:auto;overflow:visible;}.css-15830to{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;width:100%;}.css-9vd5ud{width:100%;}Inspired by the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth Asal curates a personal programme that combines the French composer’s music with his own improvisatory pieces Menuet sur le nom de Haydn and À la manière de Borodine interwoven with Asal’s Prélude (3191) and Cascades I-III Julius Asal is also celebrating having been named the recipient of the 2025 Terence Judd-Hallé Award Recorded in the Chapel of the Sun on the Tuscan estate of legendary US producer Rick Rubin SIENA TAPES will be released on 5 September 2025 but I’ve had the time of my life creating one” When Julius Asal was invited to give a recital in the Chapel of the Sun on US producer Rick Rubin’s estate in the Tuscan province of Siena he found himself fascinated by the ancient building’s atmosphere and acoustic “There are places where you would like to continue playing even after the audience has gone home,” he recalls “Somehow I had the impression that the sounds in those walls could echo forever.” He had found the recording location for his second Deutsche Grammophon album a follow-up to last year’s Scriabin – Scarlatti (“a remarkably assured debut album probing and a tribute to sensitivity and outstanding musicianship” – MusicWeb International) SIENA TAPES is built around four solo piano works by Ravel – Prélude in A minor It also introduces four new works by Julius Asal – Cascades I-III and Prélude (3191) – and Petites Vagues producer of the album and DG Vice President A&R New Repertoire SIENA TAPES will be released in all formats on 5 September 2025 Jeux d’eau will be available as a digital single from 25 April followed on 23 May by Cascade I and on 25 July by Petites Vagues Recently named the winner of the 2025 Terence Judd-Hallé Award having been selected for this honour by BBC Radio 3 from the pianists on its New Generation Artists scheme Julius Asal is already known not only for his exceptional artistry but for his brilliance as an improviser and for his gift for innovative programme curation these three aspects of his musicianship come together on SIENA TAPES The album was originally conceived as a 150th-anniversary tribute to Ravel challenged and questioned” him since childhood Even his more subtle works for piano contain shades and forces that you would usually find only in a complex symphony.” He chose three pianistic miniatures – the Prélude of 1913 À la manière de Borodine and Menuet sur le nom de Haydn – to complement the composer’s much-loved portrait of shimmering cascading water: “the heart of this album beats in Jeux d’eau the water games that exist somewhere between lyrical beauty and bizarreness” its title a play on the composition date of Ravel’s Prélude poignant work (“much more closely related to Ravel’s than one might initially think”) he added Badzura’s Petites Vagues He then turned to the question of weaving everything together Une barque sur l’océan and other pieces by Ravel Asal produced three interconnected improvisations that are also related to the rest of the programme these now act as the opening works in “three small trilogies” created in the midst of the album’s many thematic cross-connections During the writing and recording process in Tuscany what started out as a homage to Ravel developed and grew into what Asal calls “a very personal document” “There is a kind of ambivalence that I constantly feel with SIENA TAPES,” he concludes “Whether it’s more on the side of quirky poetry or lyrical darkness Julius Asal will perform repertoire from SIENA TAPES together with works by Brahms and Rachmaninoff at this year’s Klavier-Festival Ruhr (12 May) and at the Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht (22 May) (4 / 5)In Ravel’s 150th birthday years lies the opportunity to hear much more of his music Those bored of Bolero and are driven mad by Mother Goose Seong-Jin Cho was the winner of the First Prize ten years ago at the Chopin International Competition He has truly made a name for himself as was proven by this busy concert at the Barbican.To have done in one night the entirely of Ravel’s lifetime of piano work is no mean feat The first set showcased early work including the delightful Jeux d’eau and the instantly recognisable Pavane pour une infante défunte you fell he finest quite master things until he goes on in his career The talent of this pianist should never be doubted His furious attacks and fluid patters are the utmost poetry I think I could hear him breathing and panting at times.What really sold his was the second set of Miroirs and Gaspard de la nuit Ravel is alive her with total impressionism expressive and bold playing for Seong-Jin who makes worms meat of the score Great to hear Ravel in more experimental modes as some moments would evoke Messiaen perhaps even Ligeti latter music Gaspard de la nuit is also a treat for its impassioned state its touching sweetness too.The last set looked the longest and felt like it Valse nobles et sentimentales was the bulk impressive for its major pallet of dance and conventions which he later orchestrated is another joy evocative and some of his most essentially happy music Through it all it was Seong-Jin’s determination and utmost respect for the material that rang through and website in this browser for the next time I comment @getthechance4u Join the Get The Chance group on Facebook for updates and opportunities to get involved the Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcasts have brought opera into millions of homes playing a vital and unparalleled role in the development and appreciation of opera in this country with Humperdinck’s "Hansel and Gretel," and are now the longest-running classical music series in American broadcast history she will play the same rat-tat-ta-ta-tat pattern on the snare drum even as the rest of the musicians play a melody that has become one of the most familiar in classical music It is Suchocka’s job to set a tone and a rhythm and to keep it going until the final bombast when horns and cymbal crashes bring it to a rousing close “It’s tricky in several ways,” Sochocka said “Playing your instrument at your softest dynamic is a feat no matter what instrument you play Creating a beautiful sound at a soft dynamic is a challenge But there’s also the pacing of the dynamics You don’t want to get too loud or too strong.” About two-thirds of the way through the piece she will be joined by a second snare drum which instantly alters the sound “You have to make sure you guys are right together feeling it the same way and being slightly malleable and sticking to your guns," she said “Some people playing the melodic solo might get a little flowery with the time The “Ravel’s Bolero” concert comes just a few months before the 150th birthday of the French composer on March 7 The program also includes Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major which will feature soloist Natasha Paremski who has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra She also has played with the Nashville Symphony where Sarasota Orchestra Music Director designate Giancarlo Guerrero is ending his long tenure as music director before shifting to Sarasota The concert also includes “D’un matin de printemps” (Of a spring morning) by Lili Boulanger a French composer (and younger sister of composer and conductor Nadia Boulanger) One of the world’s most popular piecesBut “Bolero” is possibly the most famous and popular piece on the schedule It had its premiere in November 1928 at the Paris Opera as accompaniment for a ballet set during a party in a Spanish tavern “There’s a legend of how this piece came to be,” Suchocka said but he wanted to see how far he could take it.” and for him to do anything for a gimmick or thought experiment He didn’t take the piece seriously himself Here’s what I do with a scant amount of musical material’,” she said It provided inspiration for the 1934 film “Bolero” starring George Raft and Carole Lombard and it was an essential element in Blake Edwards’ 1979 comedy “10” in which Dudley Moore’s character becomes obsessed with an attractive young woman played by Bo Derek Ice dancers Jayne Torvil and Christopher Dean won the 1984 Winter Olympic Games by skating to the piece Staying focusedSuchocka said it requires clear concentration for the drummer “It is two measures repeated over and over again for 15 minutes,” she said but keeping everything straight in your head It’s almost like you go in a trance but you also have a bit of fun.” Suchocka was born in Poland and her parents are both musicians Her mother is a classically trained pianist and “she would take me to the philharmonic for her lessons She learned the Polish word for drum and when she was able to say it Her sister had played the cello but she went into medicine Suchocka was determined and knew what she wanted she spent time learning English and trying to assimilate She also discovered a program with the Chicago Symphony where lower-income children could get free percussion lessons every Saturday “We auditioned for it and I got it and it changed my life My talent was evident to my parents and I never stopped,” she said Percussionists need to know how to play many triangle and mallet instruments like the xylophone Arts Newsletter: Sign up to receive the latest news on the Sarasota area arts scene every Monday Designing the future: Sarasota Orchestra hires landscape architect for music center project Suchocka is one of several musicians who has taken part in a new Sarasota Orchestra program called Concert Companion a podcast in which musicians are interviewed about particular pieces by Sara Stovall The series started at the start of the 2024-25 season “It’s an effort for the orchestra to try to engage our audience differently,” Stovall said We have a wonderful pre-concert series called Classical Conversations The Concert Companion is similar to that but it provides a deeper dive into the music and it’s good for people who are going to the concert but also for people who might just be interested in knowing more about a piece.” The programs are available at sarasotaorchestra.org/podcast Sarasota Orchestra. Guest conductor Shiyeon Sung, with piano soloist Natasha Paremski. 7:30 p.m. Jan. 10 at Neel Performing Arts Center, 5840 26th St., West, Bradenton. 7:30 p.m. Jan. 11 and 2:30 p.m. Jan. 12. Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $39-$107. 941-953-3434; sarasotaorchestra.org The South Dakota State University School of Performing Arts will present cultural historian Joseph Horowitz and French classical pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet in a lecture-recital titled “Ravel and Jazz” on Tuesday in the Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center.  Bavouzet is one of the world’s foremost interpreters of the piano music of Maurice Ravel and will demonstrate the role American jazz played in Ravel’s music.  Bavouzet entered the international music scene after winning first prize in the International Beethoven Piano Competition his recordings of music by composers Sergei Prokofiev Bela Bartok and Ravel have received numerous awards from Gramophone the BBC Music Magazine and the French Diapason d’Or.  Bavouzet will be in South Dakota to perform as soloist with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra on March 1 This lecture-recital is free and open to the public The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra offered a vibrant but uneven evening of music Thursday night under the baton of music director Nathalie Stutzmann pairing the lush Romanticism of Tchaikovsky with the refined and often elusive orchestral palette of Ravel The program marked the ASO debut of Russian pianist Anna Geniushene who took the spotlight in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No The famous opening bars in the orchestra showed true promise for this performance of Tchaikovsky’s concerto bringing out the boldest qualities in both soloist and conductor—though it would prove to not always be in harmonious partnership Geniushene approached the work with assertive favoring hyper-expressive gestures and dramatic intensity over subtlety with broad dynamic contrasts and emphatic articulation—particularly in the outer movements where her phrasing and rhythmic liberties created a restless Stutzmann pursued a somewhat blanketed character from the orchestra Geniushene continued to project forward wit pianistic weight and even the more intimately played passages stood out against the curiously muted orchestral texture Occasional differences in pace between pianist and conductor resulted in momentary temporal disjunctions The finale brought another surge of vigor from Geniushene—dynamic and assertive in its relentlessness which alone can be enough to please an audience looking for a primarily visceral experience was a sparkling rendition of Shostakovich’s Waltz-Scherzo (often nicknamed the “Music Box Waltz”) It became clear at intermission that the second half of the concert would be critical to the evening’s success featuring music that Stutzmann ought to be able to lead well It was devoted entirely to music by Maurice Ravel a neoclassical suite originally written for solo piano While Ravel’s orchestration calls for clarity and a nod to Baroque precision Stutzmann’s reading leaned heavily toward legato phrasing and often vague textures that dulled the music’s intended character and elegance The homage to Couperin and the French Baroque felt obscured by a lack of clarity and crisp definition though warm woodwind solos provided moments of color and charm The final “Rigaudon” came across the best of the four moments and the interpretation lacked a distinct emotional arc remaining placid and unremarkable throughout—an elegy that neither drew emotive empathy nor fully captivated Ravel’s haunting and increasingly frenzied deconstruction of the Viennese waltz While Stutzmann brought intensity and drive to the climactic sections the opening missed the sense of mystery Ravel envisioned failing to evoke the misty swirl of dancers gradually emerging from shadows or nor did it capture the Viennese character that should be present favoring flat spectacle over emerging grandeur that builds to an unhinged almost cataclysmic conclusion that shatters the remnants of the waltz Maurice Ravel’s La valse ends loudly and violently; alas that visceral element is enough for some listeners But the performance did not capture the essence of Ravel’s music in a way that The ASO has proven itself highly capable in the past Hopefully the situation improved when the program was repeated Saturday evening at Atlanta Symphony Hall A thoughtfully curated prelude to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s mainstage concert unfolded Thursday evening in a 6:45 p.m highlighting stylistic diversity and strong ensemble playing in works by Eugène Ysaÿe The program opened with Ysaÿe’s Sonata for Two Violins in A Minor performed by violinists Sissi Yuqing Zhang and Rachel Ostler capturing the sonata’s conversational character Next came Jennifer Higdon’s Amazing Grace in its version for string quartet and cellist Isabel Kwon gave an understated reading of Higdon’s arrangement which layers variations of the American hymn tune in gently overlapping textures Closing the recital was Takemitsu’s Rain Tree a 1981 composition for three percussionists inspired by a short story by Kenzaburō Ōe and dedicated to Olivier Messiaen ASO principal percussionist Joseph Petrasek was joined by assistant principal Michael Jarrett and percussionist Mike Perdue in a poised and atmospheric performance making for a contemplative contemporary close to the recital free to ticketholders of the main Thursday evening concert showcased the ASO musicians’ continuing commitment to chamber music repertoire beyond their regular orchestral commitments Mark Gresham is publisher and principal writer of EarRelevant He began writing as a music journalist over 30 years ago but has been a composer of music much longer than that He was the winner of an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for music journalism in 2003 Maurice Ravel — the exalted French composer a founding father of Impressionism — came into the world on March 7 WRTI has asked each member of our classical team to select a favorite recording of his work The results span a kaleidoscopic instrumental palette from solo piano to wind quintet to full symphonic grandeur Be sure to tune in on March 7 to hear Ravel’s music on our classical broadcast And don’t miss our piece about his reciprocal relationship with jazz If we take Ravel’s dictum that “sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art” as gospel Martha Argerich should be considered one of his foremost apostles Sandwiched in the middle of her legendary Deutsche Grammophon debut — recorded in 1960 when the Argentinian pianist was 19 — this fantastically pliant performance of Ravel’s “Water Games” is one of her greatest sermons blending substance and splash in instinctive service to the composer’s ethos So many stellar pianists have recorded Gaspard de la Nuit that it’s nearly impossible to choose a favorite among them based on pianism alone When I heard the first moments of Gina Bachauer’s 1964 release I had my answer — thanks largely to the riveting voice of Sir John Gielgud with his urgent intonation of Aloysius Bertrand’s poetry: “Listen Do you know what you hear?” Gielgud’s readings of the three poems that inspired Ravel appear before their pianistic counterparts which Bachauer renders convincingly -- especially capturing the creepy and muscular aspects of Ravel’s artistry Hearing these masterful interpretations in juxtaposition opened my ears to a whole new perspective on Ravel I’m not ashamed to admit that I had never heard Ravel’s Piano Trio before seeing the 1992 film A Heart in Winter (Un cœur en hiver) but it was the sensuous and diaphanous opening bars of the Trio that stayed in my head for weeks I put the piece away to focus on repertoire I needed to study at the time that haunting opening of the first movement came back to me and I embarked on a rediscovery of the work this Beaux Arts Trio recording from 1984 is the most nuanced It combines such a variety of textures and emotions with a vitality and clarity I find irresistible Pierre Boulez with the Berlin Philharmonic is a work of disarming surface simplicity: a pair of 18-bar melodic phrases in C major obsessively repeated over a rudimentary snare-drum ostinato Its success lies in a deft calibration of tempo and crescendo Pierre Boulez combines clinical precision with extravagant gusto in this 1993 recording with the Berlin Phil Be sure to listen to the end — past an ever-startling key modulation — for a jazzy eruption of braying trombones “Shéhérazade: Three Poems for Voice and Orchestra” (1963) delicately colored with shimmering beams of light and darkness The lush L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Ernest Ansermet’s baton marries perfectly with the sensuality of Régine Crespin’s soprano timbre lifting the performance to greater heights while remaining intimate and expansive The texts by Léon Leclère (under the pseudonym Tristan Klingsor) offer poetry that intoxicates — much like Ravel’s music Ravel may have pushed more boundaries elsewhere but I’m a huge fan of this arrangement of his tribute to early music by Imani Winds Their reordering turns the rigaudon (a French Baroque dance) into a great closer was principal horn in The Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy Ravel was an undisputed master at conveying moods painting scenes and telling stories through the use of instrumental and orchestral color In his “choreographic symphony” recounting the love between the goatherd Daphnis and shepherdess Chloé Ravel’s viscerally exciting score leaves almost nothing to the imagination This recording with André Previn was the first complete recording of Ravel’s score I ever encountered as an impressionable young radio host especially as conveyed through the heated and ecstatic interplay between the wordless chorus and orchestra was enough to make this twenty-something-year-old blush considerably Gaspard de la nuit’s “Scarbo,” “Miroir’s “Alborada del Gracioso” and Le tombeau de Couperin’s “Toccata”) While he filled his solo piano works with glittering explosions of virtuosity most also possess deceptively emotional depth in which the unsuspecting pianist may drown And playing all his piano music on a single program (even one with three intermissions) demands near-incredible stamina: the pianist is on stage for three hours Only a remarkable pianist like Seong-Jin Cho who appeared in the Celebrity Series Sunday afternoon in Symphony Hall can meet Ravel’s complicated and extensive demands Cho’s already among the greatest talents of his remarkable era piano mavens have known about him for years In 2011 the then 17-year-old pianist won the Bronze Medal in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition and he won the Gold Medal in Warsaw’s Chopin Competition He’s already appeared several times in the Celebrity Series and as a soloist with the BSO) Cho opened with Serenade grotesque and Menuet antique realizing their Mussorgsky-like grotesquerie and harmonic surprises with complete mastery His delivered an almost startling well-executed and idiomatic take on Ravel’s Pavanne pour une infante defunte He stripped the piece of sugary sentimentality that many pianists emphasize thus revealing a melodic line with unsuspected strength which is inspired by the textures of Liszt’s Jeux d’eaux a La Villa d’Este Ravel may have surpassed the master himself Cho gave extraordinary traversals of two of the composer’s greatest works the nevulous mists that “Noctuelles” depicts and of the echoes of birdsong in “Oiseaux triste” (and of its resemblance to Liszt’s St Cho’s navigation of the legendary \difficulties of Alborada del Graciosa astonished me In conjuring up the sounds and rhythms of flamenco guitar music Cho dispensed these problems with a ridiculous ease as exhilarating to watch as to hear perhaps wanting to top Mily Balakirev’s Islamey the composer set out to make the piece ― particularly its third and final section “Scarbo” ― the most pianistically difficult ever written Cho’s glorious interpretation ranks among the best this listener has heard in the decades since he heard Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli perform it in New York City Cho made the waves of arpeggios in the melancholy song of “Ondine” sound unusually luscious and seductive In “Le Gibet,” the hanging and decomposing corpses came to cruel life and “Scarbo,” with its macabre terrors and frightening silences Cho also did something that I don’t think I’ve heard before tolling B-flat which chimes throughout “Le Gibet,” just long enough to make “Scarbo’s” terrifying goblin seem to rise from the hanging corpses Cho’s “Scarbo” recalled Francois Samson’s famous 1948 recording of the piece The afternoon’s final third concluded with Le tombeau de Couperin While his two piano concertos were yet to come this was the last work Ravel ever composed for solo piano He had driven an ambulance on the Western Front in World War I and saw its horrors up close and dedicated each of Le tombeau’s six movements to a friend who died Ravel remarked of its relative brightness that “the dead are sad enough.” Cho elicited the dead with grace and elegance He rendered the second movement’s “Fugue” with a special  delicacy “Rigaudon” came across with poignance rather than sentimentality In “Toccata,” perhaps “the finest moto perpetuo ever written for solo piano he executed the repeated notes and alternating chords with staggering splendor After experiencing three hours of flawless and heroic pianism 9 Comments » Categories Reviews 9 Comments [leave a civil comment (others will be removed) and please disclose relevant affiliations]The oft hackneyed phrase “tour de force” is truly the only adequate descriptor of Cho’s performance yesterday afternoon he bedazzled me with his performance of Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand with the BSO!) Samson François is the (order of the) name of the terrific it’s still the most remarkable Scarbo ever recorded Comment by Steve Wigler — February 4 Comment by james blair — February 4 I went to last night’s performance of the same program at Carnegie Hall not simply “supervirtuosic” but incredibly subtle with all kinds of colorings I was reminded of Earl Wild – just glorious I found myself thinking how wonderful Cho would make a Baldwin sound……..perfect for this repertoire You mention Samson Francois and I have his recording of course Everyone’s Scarbo is different as it should be When discussing who is best I am reminded of those who argue about the greatest quarterback I’d simply like to state my appreciation for and agreement with this laudatory review I have never found myself so engaged with a single-instrument performance in my entire concert-going life; three hours went by like that even in the hard Cho’s effortless and probing performance brought out the staggering originality of these works which in its more tempered aspect brought to mind Emily Dickinson’s ‘After great pain Comment by Peter Nohrnberg — February 6 but I must come to the defense of my Biblical half-namesake and did not touch wine or strong drink (or cut his hair) He did of course have a weakness for women The proper biblical name is not Son of Sam but rather Shimshon or “child of the sun” A stray reference to one of my favorite pianists drew my attention to a review of one of Bolet’s students by my friend of a great many years Wigler’s review of Seong-Jin Cho’s all-Ravel recital in Jorgan Hall I was listening to a recording of Cho’s recent performance of the same program in Carnegie Hall Wigler wrote could also apply to what I was listening to I want to say what a pleasure it is to again read Wigler’s work The chance to read the thoughts of a genuine connoisseur who actually heard with understanding Moiseiwitsch Richter and Rubinstein and every master since those giants roamed the earth is a rapidly disappearing privilege and I thank you for it Comment by Francis Crociata — February 8 RSS feed for comments on this post. Ravel’s piano music represents one of the most important bodies of work composed for the instrument in the first half of the 20th century: a collection of masterpieces that contain the distilled essence of this great composer’s art running the gamut from touching simplicity to Seong-Jin Cho has always felt a close connection with the French piano literature and found himself fully immersed in Ravel while studying at the Paris Conservatoire Discussing the challenges of the solo works he points to the composer’s orchestral sound and meticulous attention to detail so I try to follow his specific markings,” he says full of imagination and colour – it’s almost impossible to apply every marking Already available on STAGE+ is a 2024 performance of Cho playing Ravel at Berlin’s Siemens Villa the Carnegie Hall recital shall also be available on demand following the concert Tune in to watch Seong-Jin Cho play Ravel’s Complete Solo Piano from Carnegie Hall here on February 5th. 1) 0ms;height:auto;overflow:visible;}.css-15830to{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;width:100%;}.css-9vd5ud{width:100%;}The complete solo piano works will be released on 17 January 2025  Recorded with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons the Piano Concertos in G major and for the Left Hand follow on 21 February with a deluxe limited complete edition out on 11 April Cho additionally celebrates the Ravel anniversary year with international solo touring – he gives multiple recitals across Europe beginning at the Vienna Konzerthaus on 25 January 2025 Listen to the Prélude from Le tombeau de Couperin here “I’ve always been fascinated by the ideas, colours and emotions to be found in Ravel’s music, and it has been an honour to record his complete solo piano works and concertos” Recent reviews suggest he knows exactly how to realise Ravel’s wishes. Following a recital in Madrid in March, Scherzo hailed Cho as “perhaps the finest Ravel interpreter of our time”, while after his Edinburgh Festival recital, The Scotsman wrote, “With what seemed like impossibly perfect precision, the first half of all Ravel heard Cho in a contrasting and extensive range of colour, coupled with a sense of flow that allowed the music to breathe with ease and warmth.” Similar acclaim met his appearances with Andris Nelsons and the BSO earlier this year. Reviewing their Carnegie Hall performance of the Concerto for the Left Hand, Bachtrack hailed the way “Cho’s left hand scampered along the keyboard with ease, power and finesse, answering the orchestra’s initial crescendo with dark, thundering chords and a breathtaking cadenza”, while The New Criterion called his playing “simply exemplary”. For his part, the pianist praises the BSO and its Music Director, recalling the expertise in the French repertoire for which the orchestra has been renowned for a century or more, since the days of Nelsons’ predecessors Pierre Monteux, Charles Munch and Sergei Koussevitzky. “Performing with the BSO, you feel like the French spirit is in their blood – it was so inspiring to play and record with them, and of course working with Andris is always a real joy.” Together, these recordings constitute a strong artistic statement on Ravel from Seong-Jin Cho. “This is the first time I’ve either performed or recorded a single composer’s complete works,” he notes. “I certainly understand Ravel with much more depth than before and have hugely enjoyed immersing myself in the many different aspects of his music.” Sorry, this audio is not yet available or has expiredBrought to you by Principal Guest Conductor Jaime Martín leads us in a program of French gems, starting with a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Ravel's birth. His luscious, magical, enchanting and playful score to the ballet Ma Mère l'Oye is based on classic fairy tales, from Sleeping Beauty and Little Ugly to Tom Thumb and Beauty and the Beast. After the interval, opera superstar Danielle de Niese makes her debut with BBC NOW as Elle in a semi-staged performance of Poulenc's powerful one act opera, La voix humaine. During a phone call from her lover, grief and denial lead to outrage and despair as he calls off their relationship — the timeless theme of unrequited love playing out before our very eyes. Live performance recording from January 30, 2025, at BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff. Courtesy of the European Broadcasting Union. Maurice Ravel: Ma mère l'oye (suite)Francis Poulenc: La Voix humaine, opera in one act for soprano and orchestra Danielle De Niese (soprano)BBC National Orchestra of WalesJaime Martín (conductor) Danielle de Niese.(Supplied: Danielle de Niese) Download the ABC listen app for free music podcasts and playlists The requested URL was not found on this server Maurice Ravel’s Bolero may be the composer’s single most popular work But there’s a lot more to it than its two beguiling melodies may suggest There’s nothing like Ravel’s Bolero: just two tunes It’s a 15-minute piece ‘without music in it’ none of the conventional ways of making and sustaining a piece of orchestral music even in the experimental decade of the 1920s Bolero’s popularity on classical favourites playlists is one of the strangest things about it One of the orchestra’s two side-drummers has to play the same two-bar rhythm 170 times The only changes in the piece comes from how Ravel orchestrates the two tunes, the way he structures the piece as a single, gigantic crescendo But it’s the single most experimental piece of orchestral music in the classical-pops canon in the way its melodies and its rhythms hammer their way into your brain And yet Ravel's Bolero does have precedents in the paradoxically opposed modes of expression that define it: the terpsichorean and the mechanical commissioned by Ida Rubinstein for her to dance in 1928 But Ravel’s Bolero is different from any of those sources That's because of how much slower it is than a true bolero The Cuban composer Joaquín Nin pointed that out to Ravel – who replied now the most famous bolero anywhere – is really an abstracted version of the dance the sensuality of the original is hammered out obsessed over and pummelled into a machine-like oblivion And machinery – musical and industrial – is Bolero’s other essential resource On a US tour earlier in the Bolero year of 1928 he arranged a special visit to the Ford factory in Detroit Not a trip that was on most touring musician’s itineraries he loved the ‘wonderful symphony of travelling belts whistles and terrific hammer blows which envelop you How much music there is in all of this – and I certainly intend to use it.’ we’re simultaneously seduced and overwhelmed by its weird non-musical music The Ravel Bolero remains one of the most radical pieces ever made; making music that’s both inhuman and human Ravel’s Boléro plays during a love scene in this comedy starring Dudley Moore and Bo Derek British ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean performed a now-legendary routine to Boléro This Italian animated film features a surreal sequence set to Boléro depicting evolution from single-celled organisms to civilization Claude Lelouch’s film uses Boléro in an emotional ballet sequence with Jorge Donn A dramatic orchestral version of Boléro accompanied the Olympic torch lighting Elements of Boléro are woven into the film’s Bolero Rouge News | Mar 30 many classical music lovers noted Maurice Ravel’s 150th birthday Quatuor Debussy pairs Ravel’s music with the composer whose name it carries in celebration of both composers The program includes Claude Debussy’s Préludes and Ravel’s Ma Mére l’Oye and String Quartet in F major “This program is entirely dedicated to two of the greatest French composers who are emblematic of the early 20th-century French artistic movements the full range of the French musical palette from the most delicate sounds to the most powerful,” said Quatuor Debussy’s first violinist Christophe Collette “It’s always a joy to bring Ravel’s music to life in America particularly for the musical innovations he discovered here.” The French-based quartet begins the concert with a nod to its mentor “(He) only gave us one official string quartet in 1893 we decided to create a second one ourselves by transcribing four of his piano preludes: Bruyères Footsteps in the Snow and Alternating Thirds We believe these transcriptions bring an added layer of refined textures to his music,” Collette said Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) attracted the quartet with its simplicity of writing “Ravel himself orchestrated a second version of this work so it felt natural to imagine a third — halfway between the two — for string quartet,” he said “As for Ravel’s string quartet from 1903 it is probably the masterpiece of French chamber music It always leaves us wishing he had written more for our ensemble He describes any quartet as “a delicate balance of four personalities serving a shared interpretation.” “It’s a true four-way dialogue where each player must find the right position — not too far forward and together we channel a collective energy that we offer to the audience The result should be a blend of unity and distinct individual voices that take turns expressing themselves,” he said Quatuor Debussy has constantly sought new ways to share its passion or collaborating with artists from other disciplines,” he said “These varied experiences allow us to perform almost any kind of music while always maintaining the same high artistic standards.” He believes a concert is about sharing — in this case and (with) a deep admiration for two composers who represent an incredibly creative period where the arts were in constant dialogue with one another,” he said The quartet’s values of sharing extend to collaborations with artists in other fields The musicians also host workshops and outreach programs for various demographics “When we create a performance with a company from another artistic field we reflect on the musical dramaturgy and aim for a cohesive the interpretation is enriched not only by the composer’s message stage directors and others,” he said the music becomes part of a broader scenic atmosphere merging into a unified artistic experience.” Kentucky Derby Parties The 151st Kentucky Derby is set for Saturday at 4:57 p.m and here are a few places you can go for watch parties: Lookout Bar at Westin Riverfront in Avon Celebrate the Kentucky.. Easter events in the Vail Valley Church services An Easter tradition that’s been going on for over 30 years is the Vail Mountain Easter Sunrise Service bright and early on Sunday morning Après Madness Championship Party at Avanti F&B The NCAA College Basketball Tournament may have crowned a champion on Monday but Friday is when you can congratulate this year’s winner of Vail’s own form of competition:.. Après at The Amp For its third year in a row Ford Amphitheater has proven that it’s not just a summer venue the Swedish pop band that took the world by storm in the 1970s and early 1980s with its hits “Waterloo,” “Take a Chance on Me” and “Dancing Queen,” will virtually.. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page But his music is a thing of wonderMaurice Ravel: his personal life was a mystery But his music is a thing of wonderWe explore the life and work of Maurice Ravel Elliott & Fry/Evening Standard/Getty Images This famous declaration by the French composer Maurice Ravel tells you a lot of what you need to know about this inimitable composer, whom Stravinsky famously called 'the most perfect of Swiss watchmakers' a reference to the incredible intricacy and perfect design of Ravel's music this profession of utmost loyalty to his art must be a front and centre in any discussion of Ravel's creativity and personality – not just his sexuality favourite subject for speculation though that is And nothing would induce him to sell it short by producing a score of less than complete integrity There is scarcely one Ravel work that is not wholly comprehensible in musical terms or that requires reference to external circumstances to explain it there have been efforts to trace the progress of the disease that was to lead to the composer’s death The French writer Jean Echenoz holds such a fascination for the subject that in 2006 he published a novel about it. His Ravel is redolent of research at Le Belvédère and yet so faulty in biographical and musicological detail that it carries little credibility as either fact or fiction Of course, if there are signs of mental decay in such works as Boléro and the Left-hand Piano Concerto in D – two of the greatest orchestral works in the 20th-century repertoire and at the same time two of the most commonly chosen subjects for neurological case study – we should not shrink from learning about them But anyone who takes the risk of associating the repetitions in Boléro with frontotemporal dementia Not compulsive but coolly deliberate, the repetitive pattern of Boléro is in fact an inspired solution to a professional problem. Having set aside just enough time to orchestrate a selection of piano pieces by Isaac Albéniz for a ballet score on a Spanish theme Ravel found that the arrangement rights had been reserved for his Spanish colleague Enrique Arbós He first panicked and then conceived the idea of creating a score that would take no longer to complete than an exercise in orchestration Once he had invented the appropriately Spanish-coloured melodic material ‘Don’t you think this tune has something insistent about it?’ he asked a friend while playing it for him with one finger on the piano ‘I’m going to try and repeat it a good few times without any development while gradually building it up with my very best orchestration.’ Boléro is not only hypnotic but also calculated in construction If Maurice Ravel had ever demonstrated obsessively repetitive behaviour in his everyday life and if he were not still to write three works which betray no such thing – the two piano concertos and the Don Quichotte songs – there would be something in the Boléro-as-dementia theory it is as unreasonable as diagnosing dementia in the apparently even more obsessive minimalist composers of today When it comes to the Left-hand Piano Concerto an oddly persistent old theory that it indicates that one side of the composer’s brain was not functioning is easily disposed of Ravel composed the piece for left hand only because it had been commissioned by the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein Some commentators insist on finding something sinister about it. That, even though a piano concerto written largely for the lower part of the solo instrument was always going to produce a dark-coloured score – and not only in the piano part. As the work begins, with a low rumble on cellos and basses and then a double-bassoon solo Here is a performance of the Concerto in D from Yuja Wang: It is true that Ravel is on record as expressing the opinion that ‘the music of a concerto should be light-hearted and brilliant and not aim at profundity or dramatic effects’. But, working at much the same time on the ‘light-hearted and brilliant’ Piano Concerto in G (one of the greatest piano concertos of all time) the professional in him knew that he had to produce something different Ravel’s personal life and sexuality have been subject to plenty of speculation no evidence has been found to confirm any romantic or sexual relationships Biographers and music scholars have variously speculated that Ravel may have been gay or simply not motivated by intimate relationships with other people we know little about Ravel's personal or emotional life Ravel did suffer mental and physical traumas profound enough to affect both his personality and work We will probably never know what happened to him in his early youth to convince him that We do, on the other hand, know about the dangers, illnesses and deprivations he experienced as a soldier at Verdun in World War I Le tombeau de Couperin and La valse – the latter of which begins like the Left-hand Concerto in the darkest depths of the orchestra and ends as catastrophically as Boléro – bear the marks of that experience Another wartime misfortune was the death of his mother in 1917 The conflict between what Maurice saw as his duty to stay with his mother and his duty to enlist in the defence of his country in 1914 was probably the most intense emotional crisis in his life may be a confession of both guilt and love The thought that any sign of dementia had intruded on his work would have horrified him Or as a musically aware neurologist recently said of the Piano Concerto in G: ‘If that was the product of a sick brain there should be more of that sickness in the world’ Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has held a long relationship with Maurice Ravel's music One of his earliest recital programs was to present the complete works for the Frenchman wrote some of the most difficult music for the instrument which Lortie might classify as a predecessor to the idea of world music: with a unified In this conversation he also talks about Ravel's life-long child-like imagination and I ask Lortie about his involvement in Albanian artist Anri Sala's "Ravel Ravel Interval." Lortie plays this concerto with the Louisville Orchestra and guest conductor Ken-David Masur this weekend The programs also include music from Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloé" and Toru Takemitsu's "Star-Isle." Concert Talks are Friday morning (10 a.m.) with Ken-David Masur and Saturday evening (6:15 p.m.) with Masur and Louis Lortie Louisville Public Media depends on donations from members – generous people like you – for the majority of our funding You can help make the next story possible with a donation of $10 or $20 We'll put your gift to work providing news and music for our diverse community No one knew better this 21-year-old dandy — in the Baudelairean sense — who debated the colors of ties and shirts with the utmost seriousness while being fascinated by poetry was only beginning to forge his creative voice after being expelled from piano and harmony classes at the Paris Conservatory “It is a composition from 1902 that has been identified thanks to an entry in Viñes’ diary which is also featured in the New York exhibition,” explains Màrius Bernadó speaking from his office at the University of Lleida This musicologist and professor is immersed in an ambitious project to reconstruct the entire concert career of Ricardo Viñes Viñes was the preeminent pianist of the French avant-garde premiering in Paris much of the finest piano music of his time “At the Musicology Laboratory of the University of Lleida we are working on pianoNodes: Ricardo Viñes in Concert a project that will serve as the foundation for a portal based on linked open data,” Bernadó explains “It will bring together all available knowledge on Viñes allowing users to access the resources of his rich documentary collection Bernadó is also focused on Viñes’s extraordinarily rich unpublished diary “It spans more than 7,000 pages written across 30 notebooks in which the pianist recounts his first three decades in the French capital from his arrival in October 1887 to an abrupt end in August 1915,” he says The manuscript of Sémiramis was acquired in 2000 by the National Library of France “But the score is unsigned and lacks the usual markings of the French composer so it was not clear whether the music was his or someone else’s,” Bernadó notes He added only the tenor aria sung by Manasseh in the first scene where he expresses his love and fascination for Sémiramis but did not continue with the remaining three scenes of the libretto Ravel submitted the work in 1902 for the Paris Conservatory’s composition prize The musicologist presents Viñes’ diary entry from April 7 1902: “In the morning I went to the Conservatoire to hear Ravel’s cantata Sémiramis which was rehearsed studied and played by the orchestra conducted by [Paul] Taffanel: it is very beautiful and full of an oriental flavor No other record of this composition exists — neither in the conservatory’s administrative archives nor in the press of the time, as noted by François Dru who has prepared the score of the prelude and dance for its world premiere in New York The 1902 performance described by Viñes took place during a Thursday morning class at the Paris Conservatory to hear the complete work as composed by Ravel — including the prelude and the tenor aria for Manassès — we will have to wait until the end of the year The Orchestre de Paris will perform it in December at the Philharmonie de Paris he was unfairly eliminated in the first round triggering the scandal known as the Ravel Affair The controversy ultimately led to the resignation of the conservatory’s director and the appointment of Ravel’s teacher and advocate Ravel’s musical innovations had begun much earlier “The composer and the pianist met in November 1888 when they were both 13 years old and studying in Charles de Bériot’s piano class at the conservatory sharing hobbies such as reading and reciting poetry and visiting art galleries and auction houses Even as their respective mothers met to speak Spanish the two teenagers experimented with new Spanish harmonies and rhythms by playing four-handed piano,” Bernadó explains From that experience emerged one of Ravel’s first significant compositions, the Habanera from Sites auriculaires which he later orchestrated as the third movement of his Rapsodie espagnole This creative journey continued with Alborada del gracioso and extended to his opera L’heure espagnole (1911) which will be staged next month at Les Arts in Valencia Bernadó also highlights that this year marks the 150th anniversary of Viñes' birth an occasion officially recognized by the Catalan regional government and supported by the Lleida City Council In addition to numerous commemorative activities — concerts and publications — the ultimate goal is to preserve and improve access to this rich yet long-neglected heritage “The premiere of Ravel in New York is a clear example of the opportunity and the need to invest in heritage to ensure its preservation and also to generate knowledge that allows the design and creation of cultural products,” says Bernadó The majority of Viñes’ extensive documentary collection has been entrusted to Lleida by his descendants through successive donations following his death in 1943 it now requires urgent conservation efforts A significant portion of his concert programs is already available as open-access resources in the institutional repository of the University of Lleida along with the reconstruction of his remarkable musical library which remains dispersed across multiple North American and European collections Building on the momentum of the anniversary commemoration this vast trove of information will be integrated and interconnected using digital humanities tools The latter revolutionized piano writing with its blend of dazzling virtuosity and delicate impressionist nuance as noted by Arbie Orenstein in his classic monograph Ravel: Man and Musician Following these early successes, Viñes and Ravel formed Le Cercle des Apaches, an association of musicians, writers, and artists who gathered every Saturday. The group later included figures like Manuel de Falla and Igor Stravinsky. Viñes went on to premiere Miroirs (1904) and Gaspard de la nuit (1908) ephemeral nocturnal imagery of three poems by Aloysius Bertrand their relationship began to deteriorate in the 1920s due to disagreements over the interpretation of Ravel’s works Viñes’s recordings from 1929 to 1936 no longer included any of Ravel’s compositions the composer found an ideal pianist in Marguerite Long for whom he wrote Le tombeau de Couperin and the Concerto in G Ravel began experiencing the early symptoms of a degenerative neurological disease which would ultimately reduce him to a shadow of himself — an image masterfully rendered with irony and precision by Jean Echenoz in the closing pages of his novel Ravel (2006) Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition ¿Quieres añadir otro usuario a tu suscripción ¿Por qué estás viendo esto? cambia tu suscripción a la modalidad Premium Cada uno accederá con su propia cuenta de email lo que os permitirá personalizar vuestra experiencia en EL PAÍS ¿Tienes una suscripción de empresa? 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Seong-Jin Cho performed music of Ravel Sunday at Symphony Hall Photo: Robert Torres/Celebrity Series of Boston A little more than a week after the Boston Symphony Orchestra wrapped its survey of the complete Beethoven symphonies the Celebrity Series brought Seong-Jin Cho to Symphony Hall to present all of Maurice Ravel’s solo piano works the keyboard version of that score is a transcription of the orchestral original who won the First Prize at the 2015 Chopin International Competition had his hands full with a baker’s dozen of other selections that spanned nearly three hours (including two intermissions) A decade out from his big triumph in Warsaw the 30-year-old South Korean pianist has established himself as a musician of the first rank To that he brings a strong feeling for matters pertaining to color Cho possesses such a command of his instrument that he forces the listener to lean in and pay that much closer attention The pianist put this special skill to fine use several times on Sunday During the spacious “Épilogue” of the Valses nobles et sentimentales the recollections of themes heard earlier came across with intense Cho’s poetic account of Pavane pour une infante défunte combined delicate balances and fluid melodic direction with exquisite inwardness Cho’s introspective bent resulted in a refinement that didn’t entirely suit the music For all its slashing rhythms and precise filigree the Sérénade grotesque’s natural acerbity sounded a bit tempered So was the finale of the F-sharp-minor Sonatine—though the pianist’s classy sheen resulted in some alluring textures in the movement’s middle part the clarity of Cho’s articulations gave it a pointillistic aspect: at times Jeux almost sounded like one of Georges Seurat’s Pont-en-Bessin seascapes rendered in notes A similar understanding of musical character permeated each of the afternoon’s big numbers Cho ably teased out the contrasts between the accompanimental glitter in “Ondine” and its shapely melodic phrases the eerie plays of light and shade in “Le Gibet.” His take on “Scarbo” was vibrant and extroverted the low-tessitura passagework ringing with ominous authority Miroirs offered no shortage of vivid imagery: flitting moths in “Noctuelles,” the torpor of a late-summer afternoon in “Oiseaux tristes,” the serene mists of “La valée des cloches.” In “Alborada del gracioso,” Cho’s dry-toned attacks belied the limber energy he brought to the outer thirds’ snapping rhythms and the textural clarity he drew from the music’s dissonant sonorities Even more striking was “Une barque sur l’océan.” Though Cho’s reading was a touch episodic his clean projection across the keyboard’s range—not to mention the pianist’s hypnotically precise billowing arpeggios—called to mind the studies of space one of the afternoon’s surprise realizations: despite Ravel’s reputation as one of the 20th century’s great originals—which he was—the man wasn’t really a musical progressive Ravel’s approach to archaic forms and devices didn’t simultaneously seek to redefine traditional notions of sensuousness and beauty This tendency was emphasized by Sunday’s novelties like the elegant Menuet antique and the enchanting Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn It also cropped up in the whimsical Á la manière de Borodine and Á la manière de Chabrier But the afternoon’s most striking display of the practice came in Le tombeau de Couperin the composer’s moving homage to friends lost in the Great War with its dual nods to the French Baroque and early-20th-century Gallic harmonic practice emerged as a play of opposites: reflective yet unsentimental rhythmically precise but also winsomely flexible The fast movements were well-directed and playful as the most unostentatious of contrapuntal exercises the “Forlane” and “Menuet” tripped gracefully Cho executing their ornamentations with biting electricity As Ravel understood—and as we’re constantly reminded—the past The Celebrity Series presents Caleb Teicher & Conrad Tao’s COUNTERPOINT 8 p.m. February 7 and 2 p.m. & 8 p.m. February 8 at Boston Arts Academy Theater. celebrityseries.org Posted in Performances Jean-Yves Thibaudet performed Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major Monday night with the Palm Beach Symphony an 11-year-old pianist named Jean-Yves Thibaudet made his orchestral debut in Paris with Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G despite having studied with Ravel and owning scores with the composer’s own markings in blue ink had urged him to play a Mozart concerto instead as Thibaudet established himself as one of the world’s major concert pianists he earned a reputation as a specialist in French music and Ravel especially recording the composer’s complete works and playing his concertos with orchestras around the world Thibaudet came to the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach Monday night to give a terrific performance of the Ravel concerto with the Palm Beach Symphony In a work he has played steadily for more than half a century he could have given a creditable account with his eyes closed and his mind on his dinner plans But his engagement with the music and the orchestra was clear throughout as he leaned in toward the orchestra or cast an attentive eye on the movements of conductor Gerard Schwarz His performance of the fizzy outer movements was a model of energetic precision in passages that some pianists turn into blurs of notes allowing rhapsodic passages in the piano to soar The heart of the work is the central Adagio in which the piano engages in extended dialogues with wind instruments Thibaudet played the long lines of melody with a hypnotic intensity then softened his tone to a rustle to accompany a wind instrument the next moment for a compelling performance of one of Ravel’s most memorable creations Thibaudet noted that he lived in Los Angeles and said he wanted to play something for those who had lost their homes—or their lives—in the city’s fires He played Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess bringing out the melody with a delicacy and a sense of forward motion that allowed the emotion to come through unforced The concert opened with blue cathedral by the contemporary American composer Jennifer Higdon written in memory of her younger brother Andrew Blue Higdon features passages for solo clarinet and solo flute Soloists on both instruments played with full rounded tones and a lively sense of phrasing that allowed these passages to come off as free of the rhythmic grid of the orchestra The work contains a climactic series of dissonant chords that were marred by a lack of precision in the violins in their upper reaches costing the passage the clarity it needed for the dissonances to come through with intensity But the performance achieved the vast sense of sonic space implied by the title the orchestra playing with clarity and unity The second half was devoted to Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No in a mixed performance that showed both the current strengths and flaws of the Palm Beach ensemble contrapuntal music that follows a fortissimo chord in the first movement or the lively cello melody that opens the waltz-like second movement with fast passages in violins and violas marred by intonation or precision issues or when key melodies in winds and strings struggled to be heard over the brass with the brass weighty and resonant without overpowering the rest of the orchestra This movement sounds so much like a finale that its noisy triumphant conclusion inevitably generates a burst of applause from audience members who think the symphony is over Schwarz didn’t wait for the applause to fade before launching the orchestra into the tragic giving the music ample room to grow in expressive power There was a fierce edge of intensity to the string playing refined brass in the choir-like passage toward the end and a well-paced procession through the work’s somber The Palm Beach Symphony’s next concert will take place 7:30 p.m. Feb. 6. The program includes Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with soloist Gil Shaham and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. palmbeachsymphony.org Posted in Performances Man shows off dexterity by playing two pianos at once plays two pianos simultaneously in a virtuosic performance of Ravel’s Bolero playing one piano alone is just not enough of a challenge The superstar Japanese pianist has gone above and beyond Sat between the two keyboards – the high range of one prepared especially to produce xylophone-like tones – Sumino expertly commands both instruments in his arrangement of Ravel’s enduringly popular Boléro Read more: Four cellists play Ravel’s Bolero on one cello, in acrobatic classical masterpiece The pianist – who is better known to his YouTube fans as ‘Cateen’ – plays the repetitive snare drum rhythm on the grand piano with his left hand whilst he plays the melody on the upright piano with his right hand This is not the first time that Sumino has produced daringly virtuosic performances His Youtube channel currently has 1.41 million subscribers with a sensational recording of him playing ‘7 levels of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ amassing a total of almost 12 million views Read more: Viral piano star interrupts ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ with a mind-blowing melodica duet surprise 7 levels of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"（きらきら星変奏曲） Sumino rose to international prominence in 2018 when he won the Grand Prix at the 42nd PTNA Piano competition before winning third prize in the Lyon international competition in July 2019 He went on to advance to the semi-final of the prestigious International Chopin Piano Competition online, with his second-round performance attracting a record-breaking 45,000 online viewers. music and piano-playing has not been Sumino’s full-time pursuit until relatively recently He studied science and engineering at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology just one year before his Chopin Piano Competition appearance Hayato Sumino’s moment of phone duet genius | Classic FM Sumino began playing the piano at age three pursuing a solo career on his instrument alongside his academic studies and research He has since forged his path as a leading figure in classical music’s digital age garnering millions of video views for his musical fusions improvisations and reinventions under his YouTube alias Sumino has signed a record deal with Sony Classical and become a Steinway Artist Ravel See more More artists On Ravel’s 150th birthday—which the NY Phil marks with a world premiere and more—we look at the enduring presence of his oeuvre March 7 marks the 150th birthday of Maurice Ravel and his reputation is holding up very well indeed There were times when his music was dismissed by poohbahs as insufficiently avant-garde but audiences have remained remarkably — and understandably — loyal The publication Bachtrack compiles annual statistics of classical music concerts worldwide and it is a rare year when Ravel does not make the list of top ten composers In 2022 he ranked seventh (after Mozart with his tone poem La Valse ranking as the most often performed of all classical compositions. He dropped to No probably because performers were holding off preparing to unleash their Ravel repertoire in full force during this 2024-25 anniversary season.These figures are all the more noteworthy given that the composer published only about 45 pieces in his lifetime (their number increased through posthumous editions). Ravel was physically unassuming — 5’3” tall 108 pounds — and his scores are not the most imposing in the repertoire not being generally extroverted in a barnstorming way The luscious orchestral climaxes in Daphnis et Chloé do not rattle the rafters and even such virtuosic works as his two piano concertos — one for the left hand alone both filled with technical challenges and both performed by the New York Philharmonic this month — do not seem conceived to dazzle in the way that coeval concertos by Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev do Ravel composed the 1908 piano suite Gaspard de la nuit with the intent that its last movement should be the most knuckle-busting piano solo out there outdoing even Balakirev’s fearsome Islamey; more than a century later whatever possessed them to program something that could so easily go awry grandeur was rarely Ravel’s goal; it would have been contrary to his character His fellow piano students at the Paris Conservatoire viewed him as friendly but reserved described him as a “slightly bantering paradoxical and refined,” and at the same time outspoken due to “a love of Art and Beauty which guide him and which make him react candidly." Finesse informed Ravel’s person as it did his art As a young man he dressed as a dandy — who “must aspire to be sublime without interruption; he must live and sleep before a mirror,” wrote Baudelaire — and that trait stuck with him for the rest of his life his pianist- friend Hélène Jourdan-Morhange wrote: “This New Year of 1938 is the first one for 21 years which has not (alas!) found me in a state of perplexity on the subject of Ravel’s neckties so it was with his music. Ravel’s orchestral writing is filled with colors that seem at once startling and absolutely right Has a contrabassoon solo ever been as perfectly craft- ed to the need at hand as the one in his Mother Goose Suite Who else would have given an entire variation in Boléro to the little-used oboe d’amore more mellow than a regular oboe but less melancholy than an English horn More than 20 composers have made orchestral arrangements of Musorgsky’s piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition but Ravel’s has been the gold standard ever since it appeared in 1922 — and what music-lover could do without the eerie sound of the alto saxophone the haunting balladeer of the piece’s Old Castle movement singing mournfully above muted strings he was often eclipsed in critical admiration by Debussy; then young composers like Poulenc and Milhaud justifiably elbowed into the spotlight of French music “The years passed,” wrote Prokofiev in a memorial tribute “the new composers have taken their allotted place in French music but Ravel still remains one of the leading French composers and one of the outstanding musicians of our time." what makes the NY Phil’s Ravel celebration stand apart from others is the rare honor of premiering a work by this seminal figure in 20th-century music on this month’s concerts Dudamel is leading the Orchestra in the World Premiere of Ravel’s Prélude et Danse de Sémiramis composed in his youth for a competition then lost for years, which is also featured in the NY Phil exhibit Visit NYPhil.org A rundown of current Broadway shows and their planned show times and Ta-Tynisa Wilson will perform nearly 50 songs by the late singer-songwriter See clips of the numbers “Daydream,” "Flying Away" and "Jugglin'" from the new musical The play comes on the heels of a broader cultural conversation about Dahl's work and the prejudice that was embedded in many of his most beloved stories Pearson will be the first disabled actor to portray Joseph Merrick on screen The musical will play its final performance on Broadway May 18 The Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones musical would go on to play over 17,000 performances at the Sullivan Street Theatre The play began performances April 28 at Audible's Minetta Lane Theatre Thank You!You have now been added to the list Blocking belongson the stage,not on websites Our website is made possible bydisplaying online advertisements to our visitors Please consider supporting us bywhitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.Thank you A pair of pleasant traversals of the French master’s complete piano music from the still-relative-newcomer Seong-Jin Cho and the established Jean-Efflam Bavouzet There’s nothing like a 150th birthday to jump-start the classical recording industry And when the big day belongs to Maurice Ravel the experience of wading through the offerings brings with it the prospect of being that much more pleasant So it goes with a pair of traversals of the French master’s complete piano music from the still-relative-newcomer Seong-Jin Cho (on Deutsche Grammophon) and the established Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (on Chandos) who’s all-Ravel tour landed in Boston in early February is in many regards a natural Ravel pianist His technique is impeccable and he’s got a wonderful command of his instrument’s color palette When the stars align — as they do in Gaspard de la nuit’s “Scarbo,” with its astonishingly clean (and minimally pedaled) voicings or the shapely “Menuet” from Le Tombeau de Couperin — the results are invigorating that’s not consistently the story of the larger effort Pavane pour une infante défunte is luminously voiced Short selections like the reflective Menuet sur l’nom d’Haydn and wistful À la manière de Chabrier come off winningly the opening movement of the Sonatine and the whimsically flitting phrases of Miroirs’ “Noctuelles.” Cho’s Ravel lacks a certain degree of character and abandon the composer once offered that his music shouldn’t be interpreted But that doesn’t mean it should be refined to a fault Yet that’s what happens in the too-polished Sérénade grotesque despite the emergent clarity of its various rhythmic layers “Une barque sur l’océan” needs more room to breathe “Alborada del gracioso,” for all the contrasts of tone and spirit that Cho mines from its pages doesn’t exhibit the orchestral sweep that it might Ditto for the Valses nobles et sentimentales in which the pianist’s lovely-but-fussy performance simply gets lost within itself: only intermittently is one reminded that these waltzes are Part of the album’s issues stem from its engineering which places Cho’s Steinway too forward in the mix there’s nowhere for the music to grow and develop That’s especially evident in Tombeau’s concluding “Toccata,” which But the pianist’s tendency toward literalism — which was periodically on display in his Symphony Hall appearance (though less acutely than on disc) — suggests that for all his considerable artistic strengths Cho is still finding his interpretive footing in this fare is better established in this music and it shows a sense of Gallic spirit infuses each of the older artist’s offerings is both well-directed and strongly defined (by register the blustery figurations in its closing “Animé” emerging with particular brilliance Bavouzet’s pert enunciation of the music’s articulations and careful shaping of its dynamics — coupled with his tendency to lean into the beat a bit — results in a reading of uncommon freshness His approach to Miroirs is continually alive to Ravel’s nuanced scoring The climactic swells of “Une barque,” the explosive apex of “Alborada,” and the haunting sonorities of “La vallée de cloches” all emerge viscerally So do the limpid textures of Gaspard’s “Ondine.” There the middle section of “Le Gibet,” with its intensely focused ppps and the tempestuous runs of “Scarbo” are thrillingly dispatched Bavouzet’s take on Tombeau is likewise fresh if a bit forceful in the “Rigaudon.” Nevertheless the “Fugue” is nicely colored and the big dynamic range of “Forlane” is firmly articulated never loses sight of the music’s underlying Maybe that was because the score was originally written for orchestra Bavouzet’s stupendous account of the showpiece is a masterclass of virtuosity and feeling: who needs an orchestra when you’ve got a pianist like him on the bench Jonathan Blumhofer is a composer and violist who has been active in the greater Boston area since 2004 His music has received numerous awards and been performed by various ensembles including the American Composers Orchestra Since receiving his doctorate from Boston University in 2010 in addition to writing music criticism for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette The Lady’s Dressing Room (1732) BY JONATHAN SWIFT Five hours (and who can do it less in?) By haughty Celia… but this Littlefield review has convinced me to make the purchase your comments reek of what is wrong in today's society and also if entitlement About Us Advertising/Underwriting Syndication Media Resources Editors and Contributors © 2025 The Arts Fuse. All Rights Reserved. Site by AuthorBytes LondonMultitudes festival opened with a stunningly effective collaboration between the Australian circus company and the London Philharmonic Orchestra exquisite and extraordinary as Ravel melds with acrobaticsRoyal Festival Hall agility and strength suits Ravel uncommonly well Rather than use the music as accompaniment to display Lifschitz worked with the score rather than against it though he dispensed with Daphnis et Chloé’s narrative replacing it with a sequence of contrasting abstract tableaux always rooted in the pulse and throb of the music played with exquisite finesse and detail by the LPO and Gardner throughout look like classical statues slowly coming to life in the Introduction as their lifts and dives become ever more vertiginous The Danse Guerrière became a spectacular contest of prowess between two men on a climbing frame a woman hovered and swung with supreme grace in bolts of cloth high above the orchestra Supreme grace … Circa and the LPO perform Daphnis et Chloé Photograph: Pete WoodheadThe sudden ambivalence marked the transition to La Valse with its underlying sense of society careering towards its own destruction Tracksuits and skirts replaced the clingy lacy outfits worn in Daphnis and where the latter was danced in pools of light if more closely woven: we’re now aware of tautness and tension throughout Routines began and ended in the formality of ballroom hold and Gardner ratcheted up the pressure as the waltz itself moved almost imperceptibly from suave elegance to something infinitely more troubling with the 10 acrobats simultaneously performing a different spotlit dance was astonishing but we were also suddenly and shockingly aware how isolated each had become Anderson/Boulianne/Chest/Dufresne/Jones/Keenlyside/ Murrihy/Spence/Thomas/Martineau(Signum two CDs)Pianist Malcolm Martineau adds Ravel to his surveys of French song with a treasure trove of lesser-known works nicely timed for the composer’s 150th anniversary this year Martineau is partnered by a lineup of mostly British singers who tackle the songs as if determined to demonstrate that this repertoire should never be seen as the exclusive preserve of Francophone artists The Complete Songs of Ravel The settings are arranged chronologically across the two discs from the Ballade de la Reine Morte d’Aimer (Ballad of the Queen Killed by Love) which Ravel composed in 1893 when he was just 18 but already showing the fastidious ear for texture and colour that would characterise all his music to the three settings that make up Don Quichotte à Dulcinée originally commissioned for a film by Pabst starring the great Russian bass Chaliapin Martineau is of course the common denominator through the discs whether evoking the shimmering orchestral colours in the piano version of Shéhérazade (which does the rustic humour of the Chants Mélodies Populaires Grecques or the pictorial impressions of Histoires Naturelles while the exquisite Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé are performed in Ravel’s original instrumentation with the soprano partnered by two flutes those that do not form part of a well-known cycle or set an arrangement of a Greek folk song that Ravel composed after his father’s death But among the better known numbers there are some fine performances as well as a few disappointments: the soprano Paula Murrihy brings a real sultry intensity to Shéhérazade and baritone Simon Keenlyside finds precisely the right light touch for the epigrammatic Histoires Naturelles while the mezzo Julie Boulianne proves more convincing in the Mallermé settings than she is in Chansons Madécasses perhaps the greatest of all Ravel’s vocal works there are far more treats here than disappointments This article includes content hosted on embed.music.apple.com We ask for your permission before anything is loaded as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies Listen on Apple Music (above) or Spotify Join us at the Akustika Fair at the Nuremberg Exhibition Centre from April 4-6 Meet The Strad team at stand F08 and pick up a free copy of the magazine The Strad Directory Jobs After discovering that the piece was premiered at the Fontainebleau Castle in 1924 the Fontainebleau School has created a film exploring the famous work The Fontainebleau Schools of Music and Fine Arts which offer courses for both musicians and architects have released a documentary about French composer Maurice Ravel’s popular violin and piano work, Tzigane for the centenary of the work’s composition programme director of the Fontainebleau Schools only recently discovered that the piece was premiered at the Fontainebleau Palace on 13 August 1924 prompting the production of this retrospective documentary students and school directors discuss the piece’s history as well as the links that can be made to architecture Violinist Anaïs Feller is also shown playing the piece and receiving coaching on it She explains her journey in developing her artistic vision for the work.  said of the project’s aims: ’I wanted to show through Tzigane the influence of eastern folk music on classical music and how it teaches violinists to be open to the world The documentary was also directed by Studio Thi Koan Read: Masterclass: Arabella Steinbacher on Ravel’s Tzigane Watch: A prize-winning Tzigane from violinist Matthew Hakkarainen In The Best of Technique you’ll discover the top playing tips of the world’s leading string players and teachers It’s packed full of exercises for students plus examples from the standard repertoire to show you how to integrate the technique into your playing The Strad’s Masterclass series brings together the finest string players with some of the greatest string works ever written Masterclass has been an invaluable aid to aspiring soloists chamber musicians and string teachers since the 1990s Fulton amassed one of the 20th century’s finest collections of stringed instruments This year’s calendar pays tribute to some of these priceless treasures including Yehudi Menuhin’s celebrated ‘Lord Wilton’ Guarneri the Carlo Bergonzi once played by Fritz Kreisler and four instruments by Antonio Stradivari The film follows the highs and lows of the cellist’s international career both on and off the stage The Only Girl in the Orchestra has received an Academy Award nomination for best documentary short film The film follows the ground-breaking career of bassist Orin O’Brien Who needs the full symphony orchestra when you can play the whole thing on one violin The violinist and vocalist performs ’A Change is Gonna Come’ by Sam Cooke a song that became an anthem for the American Civil Rights Movement The mixed-instrument quartet performs a work that is quite clearly Site powered by Webvision Cloud Maurice Ravel may for ever be associated with Bolero — a ballet so famous it’s a musical cliché — but the French composer deserves his place in history for his real dance masterpiece sunlight and sensuality of its Greek island setting: there is little to match it when it comes to lush harmonies and shimmering colours To see it on the ballet stage is a special treat This year marks the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth and as a dance critic I had hoped that someone would revive Daphnis and Chloé The Royal Ballet performed Frederick Ashton’s 1951 version (the original 1912 choreography is long lost) in 2004 and Birmingham Royal we pick our ten favourite pieces by French composer Maurice Ravel is one of the greatest French composers who ever lived. Along with Claude Debussy he single-handedly changed the direction of French music in the early 20th century leading to the impressionist movement – the musical equivalent of Claude Monet’s paintings Today, he is best known for his hugely successful work, Boléro, which has earned a permanent place in popular culture over the last century. The ice-dancing pair Torvill and Dean used it in the 1984 Winter Olympics Ravel’s catalogue encompasses 85 works in a wide variety of styles ENTER NOW: Win £100,000 with Classic FM for limited time Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) was originally written as a five-movement piano duet in 1910 Ravel was a master orchestrator with a gift for scoring melodies The final movement Le jardin féerique (The Fairy Garden) with the bells chiming represented perfectly by two horns Read more: 10 of the greatest 'wow' moments in classical music Ravel: Ma mère l'oye / Dudamel · Berliner Philharmoniker “Personally I find jazz most interesting: the rhythms I have heard some of George Gershwin’s works Martha Argerich: Ravel - Piano Concerto in G Major | Nobel Prize Concert 2009 Ravel’s remarkable virtuosity led him to create pieces in many different genres. Between 1919 and 1920, he turned his attention to the waltz, the form made famous by the Strauss family, particularly Johann Strauss II His interest in composing a waltz spanned 10 years earlier and he completed a precursor to La Valse in 1911 La Valse is a mesmerising portrait of the beauty of the ballroom dance Ravel’s orchestration brings the colours vividly to life He describes the scene with the following preface in the score: “Through whirling clouds waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished The clouds gradually scatter: one sees at letter A an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo letter B.” Ravel : La Valse (Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France / Mikko Franck) Originally conceived as a ballet commissioned by the legendary Sergei Diaghilev in 1909 for his Ballet Russes Daphnis et Chloé features Ravel at his sumptuous best orchestration (which includes a vast array of percussion) and passionate bursts of melody are extraordinary and are seen as a cornerstone of the impressionist movement Ravel // Daphnis et Chloé Suite No 2 | Sir Simon Rattle Described by the composer as “a virtuoso piece in the style of a Hungarian rhapsody” Tzigane has a sound world akin to Brahms’ Hungarian Rhapsodies It was originally composed for solo violin and piano and was later orchestrated for solo violin and orchestra It is a real tour de force for the violinist who has to have mastered their instrument to perform it Written in 1899 while the French composer was studying at the Conservatoire de Paris, this gorgeous piece is very much a homage to Ravel’s teacher Gabriel Fauré Its relative simplicity contrasts with Ravel’s more impressionistic compositions and is a deliberate pastiche of the Pavane – a slow processional dance popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries its orchestrated version is the one most commonly played right in the middle of the First World War this intimate composition is based on the traditional Baroque form of a tombeau Ravel dedicated each movement to the memory of a friend who had died fighting in the conflict Ravel’s ability to adapt his writing style is evident through the expertly notated ornamentation throughout the piece Maurice Ravel: "Le Tombeau de Couperin" mit Paavo Järvi | NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester This five-movement suite for solo piano was written as a dedication to members of “Les Apaches” – who were artistic rebels who referred to themselves as “hooligans” living in the Parisian suburbs of the Belle Epoque – and is full of rich harmonies Jaeden Izik-Dzurko performs Ravel's Une barque sur l'océan at the Fondation Louis Vuitton this beautiful piece is modelled on Debussy’s string quartet although Ravel’s musical ideas are very distinct from that of his older impressionist compatriot It’s a highly lyrical piece written in the traditional four-movement structure of a quartet and has become a staple of the string quartet repertoire No list would be complete without Ravel’s most recognisable piece it was one of the last pieces he completed before illness affected his ability to compose It is remarkable for its use of just one melody which is passed across the orchestra 17 times tarting tentatively with a solo flute and ending with the full orchestra which brings us home with a tremendous crash of full-blooded orchestral majesty Read more: Ravel was the only composer of ‘Boléro’, court rules after six-year co-writer dispute Maurice Ravel - Bolero | Alondra de la Parra | WDR Sinfonieorchester Austrian conductor Hans Graf returned to Abravanel Hall Friday night to lead the Utah Symphony in a program that could aptly be called “Ravel Two Ways.” The first half features some of Ravel’s piano works that he later orchestrated while the second half is devoted to Ravel’s familiar arrangement  of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition Mussorgsky’s Pictures is an audience favorite here and appears frequently on Utah Symphony concerts In Ravel’s orchestration the massive work for solo piano is transformed into a tour-de-force for orchestra with numerous notable solos for various instruments Graf’s reading favored somewhat slower tempos throughout the work His well-paced account worked quite well and at no time did the music feel sluggish or unfocused Graf certainly brought out the best in the orchestra bringing clear-cut definition and finely honed nuances to each of the sections Graf set the tone for his interpretation straightaway in the stately manner in which he allowed the famous Promenade introduction to unfold from the opening solo trumpet to the brass choir and finally the full orchestra This deliberate tone was also present in the darkly sinister “Catacombs,” the dramatic “The Hut on Hen’s Legs” and in the triumphal closing movement But Graf also brought a keen sense of humor and fluid playfulness to the lighter movements specifically in “Tuileries,” “Limoges” and “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.” gave a beautifully wistful performance of his solo in “The Old Castle.” And principal trumpet Travis Peterson was stellar in his squeaking solo in “Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle.” Less successful was Alexander Purdy’s tuba solo in “Bydlo.” While his legato playing was fine he unfortunately had problems with intonation at Friday’s concert The concert opened with Une barque sur l’océan and Alborada del gracioso both from Ravel’s suite Miroirs and the only two of the five-movement works that he transcribed for orchestra.  He underscored the billowy expressiveness and lyricism of the music in the former while capturing the vitality and exuberance of the Spanish-flavored melodies in the latter.  Rounding out the first half was Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) Ravel originally wrote the work in 1910 as a five-movement suite for piano duet But when he orchestrated it the following year he added several movements to the original score and turned it into a ballet It is this version that is normally played at concerts Bringing a leisurely tempo to each of the movements Graf’s reading underscored the lushness of the string writing and the vibrant colors of the brass and wind instruments He coaxed well articulated and defined playing from the orchestra that emphasized the lyricism rich harmonic palette and ever-changing textures of the music.  Especially noteworthy was the playfulness that Graf brought to “Laideronnette Empress of the Pagodas.” He also conveyed the refined lyricism of “Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty” and the broad sweeping lines of “The Fairy Garden” with large gestures and eloquent phrasings contrabassoonist Leon Chodos was especially notable playing his solo part in “Conversations of Beauty and the Beast” with seamless expressiveness The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday. utahsymphony.org a young composer who’s shown more invention in works like Adh Dhohr (a concerto for the Renaissance-era serpent and orchestra) and Al’ Asr (just given its premiere recording by Quatuor Arod) both of which offer a more subtly-drawn extension of the Dutilleux/Dalbavie strain of post-Messiaen French orchestral writing His new double concerto—ostensibly a sound portrait of Vietnam that vacillates between antiquity and the colonial war era—does have attractive details including an array of percussion colors that features nine tuned gongs (four are visible in the photo below) its essential neoclassicism often slides into Hollywood-esque grandiloquence a domain where the John Williams of the world will Here’s to Western art music as a soothing social unguent Attahir’s Adh Dhohr and Al’ Asr were featured in this concert preview from KBCS-FM’s Flotation Device program Torvill and Dean skate to Ravel's Boléro in 1984 © Getty Images Read on to discover how the music of Ravel has been used in popular culture Born in 1875, the French composer Maurice Ravel celebrates his 150th anniversary in 2025 And like the man himself – exquisitely tailored – Ravel’s music betrays an artfulness that so often cultivates a surface simplicity while harbouring depths in no hurry to make themselves known composing was about refining and eliminating Obsessed with the quest for ‘technical perfection’ he confided that striving ‘unceasingly to this end… I am certain of never being able to achieve it’. A ceaseless desire for reinvention and renewal was an intrinsic part of Ravel’s psyche and it nourished a world intrigued by exoticism: from fairytale enchantment to the ‘otherness’ (as he called it) of music from Russia and the East; from the re-imagination of the past to jazz.  ‘Did you ever do it to Ravel’s Boléro?’ asks the beautiful Jenny (Bo Derek) to a spluttering George (Dudley Moore) as they sit cosily together on a sofa listening to Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet in the 1979 romantic comedy 10 takes the Prokofiev off the stereo and the nightrobe off her shoulders and the soundtrack changes to said Boléro… both in reference to the above scene from 10 Fans of the yellow family also get to hear Pavane pour une infante défunte which briefly makes an appearance elsewhere in the long-running series Beginning on their knees and ending lying on the ice Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean’s gold medal-winning routine to Boléro at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo instantly turned millions of TV-watching Brits into ice dance fans Ravel enjoyed his moment as the nation’s favourite composer Civilization VI invites gamers to create a civilisation from scratch and then is there to help them with their ambitious endeavours ‘This is the man who put a million on black, and it came out red… who married a sex kitten, just as she turned into a cat.’ So lamented the voice on a 1984 TV advert for Volkswagen Golf, accompanied by doleful piano and strings. Though not Ravel itself, the music’s debt to the Adagio assai second movement of his Piano Concerto in G was not hard to spot