Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 12/29/2010, uploaded on 05/27/2011

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.

The second piece of Miroirs, “Oiseaux tristes” (“Sad Birds”), Ravel dedicated Viñes. It is a melancholy and doleful piece which Ravel described as "birds lost in the torpor of a dark forest during the hottest summer hours." The static and quiet triplet accompaniment that persists throughout much of the piece certainly evokes the stifling haze of summer. Above this we hear the melancholy birdsongs—some soft, others louder and penetrating. Much of the movement passes by quietly, making its melancholy ever more poignant, but a solitary rise to a forte creates a clamorous climax of birdsongs. The climax is fleeting, however, and the music quickly returns to its sad demeanor. A cadenza then precedes the movement’s somber close.     Joseph DuBose

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Oiseaux tristes ("Sad Birds"), from Miroirs

In 1905, Maurice Ravel, near the exact midpoint of his life, wrote Miroirs. In that music, he looked back to youthful and lasting piano successes, but looked ahead to the brilliant Impressionist works that make his music riveting. Miroirs preceded any of Debussy's epochal piano works, and claim attention for Ravel as pioneer, innovator and even magician. He wrote at the time that these pieces "…mark a rather considerable change in my harmonic evolution." He could also have mentioned the new complexity of his rhythms and the extraordinary subtlety of the virtuosic music he had written.

Looking forward and backward is an image apt for Ravel. Miroirs is a classical piece, a gloss on the austerity of the 18th century, yet its expanded tonality colors the music with exotic shades, and the virtuosity it demands sharply limits the number of pianists able to explore it. In other works, he found inspiration in older music, yet he was early identified as a flaming modernist.

Oiseaux tristes

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.