Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 08/22/2006, uploaded on 01/09/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Alborada del Gracioso, from Miroirs        Maurice Ravel

Miroirs is Maurice Ravel's first great large scale suite for piano, written in 1905 and premiered in Paris by Ricardo Viñes in 1906.  Although Ravel hated the term "Impressionist"-as did Debussy-Miroirs is a model of the impressionist style, including ethereal harmonies and evocative titles which leave much to the imagination.  The composer said that the suite "forms a collection of pieces for the piano which mark a considerable change in my harmonic evolution."  Indeed, audiences had trouble following some of the movements at first, but it has since become a staple of the piano repertoire. 

I have chosen three movements to perform today:  Noctuelles (Night Moths) contains skittering figurations throughout which almost give the impression of a continuous cadenza.  These are contrasted in the middle section by lyrical repose, but never quite leave the texture completely.  Une barque sur l'océan (A Boat on the Ocean) is in my opinion the most breathtaking of the cycle.  It is a masterful wash of arpeggios and harmonic progressions building to a graduated climax, and painting a clear picture of a boat at sea.  Alborada del gracioso (Morning Song of the Jester) was certainly written with Ricardo Viñes' well-known virtuosity in mind, as Ravel employs fiendishly difficult techniques (such as repeated notes and double-note glissandi) in the outer sections.  These are contrasted by a middle section that employs the chanting techniques of the Spanish cante-hondo. 

Spencer Myer

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.