Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 08/22/2006, uploaded on 01/15/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

In 1900, Maurice Ravel joined a group of young, like-minded musicians, artists and writer called Les Apaches. The group met regularly at the homes of Paul Sordes and Tristan Klingsor, and came to include such other prominent names as Igor Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla. Les Apaches, which obviously refers to the Native American tribe, also had the additional meaning of “hooligans” in French and was coined by Ricardo Viñes to describe the group as “artistic outcasts.” Viñes would premiere several of Ravel’s piano works, including his Miroirs, which the composer dedicated each of its five movements to a member of Les Apaches.

Miroirs was composed during 1904-05 and given its premiere in 1906. Meaning “Reflections,” the work demonstrates the development of Ravel’s technique as a composer of piano music, which had first leapt into maturity in his 1901 piece, Jeux d’eau. Ravel’s treatment of the vast possibilities of the piano was simultaneously inspired by the florid style of Franz Liszt and the most profound advancement in piano technique since that great virtuoso’s time. This style came to be a cornerstone of French Impressionism and even influenced Ravel’s older contemporary, Claude Debussy.

“Une barque sur l’ocean” (“A Boat on the Ocean”) is the third piece of Miroirs and was dedicated to the painter Paul Sordes. The lengthiest and quite possibly the most technically demanding piece in the suite, it is a piece of shimmering beauty and one of most evocative depictions of the ocean to ever be penned. Ravel later orchestrated the piece, along with the following one (“Alborada del gracioso”). A single motif heard from the outset, with an inherent fluidity as it changes naturally between duple and compound meter, is the musical germ from which the entire movement springs. Beneath this ostinato-like motif are rippling arpeggios that conjure in the mind the waves of the ocean as they gently rock the boat back and forth. From this beginning, the music expands—the underpinning of arpeggios, which are hardly broken throughout the entire course of the movement, expand to greater depths and dimensions, eventually encompassing both hands, and provide a rich background against which the principal motif undergoes various transformations. Following this motif as it traverses the background of arpeggios, the listener witnesses the course of the boat as it traverses the great expanse of the ocean. Quietly, however, the piece comes to a close as if we behold the ship slowly disappearing over the horizon.     Joseph DuBose

___________________________________________________________________

Une barque sure l'océan, 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.