Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 07/28/2016, uploaded on 07/28/2016

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Ravel’s Sonatine is Mozartian in scope. He wrote the first movement in 1903 for a contest, but despite being the only participant, Ravel’s work was disqualified for being a few bars too long, and no prize was awarded. The work was finished in 1905. Ravel had recently been dismissed from the Conservatoire, and his five attempts to win the Prix de Rome proved futile as the techniques we associate with Ravel, such as parallel fifths and modal writing, were considered inelegant by the French musical establishment.

The Sonatine exemplifies those qualities for which the establishment initially rejected Ravel. The first movement is in F♯ minor, but Ravel uses the natural minor scale rather than raise the 6^th and 7^th scale degrees. This lack of leading tone creates a hint of tonal ambiguity as it lacks a pull towards the tonic. Parallel fifths abound in the first and second movements, which would lead to any student’s dismissal from theory class—even today! While the sections in the first movement are made crystal clear through cadences, Ravel creates a more discrete structure in the third movement, which features a brilliant style, numerous meter changes, and use of quintuple meter.

Overall the piece reveals Ravel’s respect for craftsmanship, about which he wrote, “Conscience compels us to turn ourselves into good craftsmen. My objective, therefore, is technical perfection.” Sean Chen writes of the piece, “Though the piece is titled diminutively, Ravel’s Sonatine is actually a difficult work, being harder to perform than it sounds. These challenges include negotiating the two hands around each other while close together, repeated figurations, and delicate phrasing and voicing.”        Sean Chen

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Sonatine     Maurice Ravel

The petite Sonatine in F-sharp minor emerged alongside one of Maurice Ravel’s defining piano works, Miroirs. At the urging of a friend, Ravel entered a composition sponsored by the magazine Weekly Critical Review for the first movement of a piano sonatina no longer than seventy-five measures. He was the only entrant, and was disqualified for exceeding that limit by a few bars. The magazine soon went bankrupt, and Ravel was left with an opening movement of a sonata that demanded fulfillment. Two years later, he added two more movements, a minuet and toccata-like finale, and the final product was premiered on March 10, 1906 in Lyon by Paule de Lestang. It was warmly received and immediately snatched up by Ravel’s publisher, Durand.

Written during Ravel’s burgeoning maturity, the Sonatine is an example of his more than capable handling of the Classical traditions before him. The first movement is a well-structured, even straightforward, sonata form (albeit utilizing Ravel’s Impressionistic harmonic colorings). Two themes emerge in the exposition—the first in tonic key of F-sharp minor, and the second in D major and B minor. Following this nearly textbook exposition is a dynamic and concise development section which fully captures the spirit of prior century and a recapitulation that ultimately leads to a close in the tonic major. Owing to its diminutive form, the following minuet exists without a trio. Shifting to the key of the dominant (here spelt as D-flat major), it unfolds as a slow waltz, elegant and restrained but nonetheless building through moments of passion and intensity. Lastly, the toccata finale is the most technically challenging of the Sonatine’s three movements. Inspired in part by the keyboard writing of Couperin and Rameau, the movement shifts restlessly between 3/4 and 5/4 time and abounds in energy, driving the work to a brilliant conclusion.      Joseph DuBose

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.