Classical Music | Cello Music

Recorded on 06/22/2005, uploaded on 02/18/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Alborada del Gracioso            Maurice Ravel

In 1905, Ravel composed a set of five piano pieces under the title Miroirs (Mirrors). Three of the five individual works were all later orchestrated. The most successful of these re‑clothed pieces is certainly the Alborada del Gracioso, heard here transcribed for cello and piano.

Alborada means morning serenade. Generally it is sung by a friend watching out for the safety of two illicit lovers; as the night wanes, the friend sings outside the bedroom window that the dawn is approaching and that it is time for the lovers to part.  It is the second part of Ravel's title that is uniquely elusive, for this is the morning song of the gracioso-a buffoon, a jester, a clown. So the style is less typical of a romantic interlude, and more of a vigorous Spanish dance, possibly somewhat comic in character, with typical Iberian rhythm and the frequent opposition of 6/8 and 3/4 meters.    Wendy Law

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.