Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 10/26/2016, uploaded on 05/17/2017

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Ravel completed La Valse on commission from ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev. But when Ravel played it for him, the impresario saw no dance possibilities in it. The composer was offended, and Ravel and Diaghilev never collaborated again. Still, Ravel published the score as a poème chorégraphique, and there is a prefatory note with a hint of a scenario: “Swirling clouds afford glimpses, through rifts, of waltzing couples. The clouds scatter little by little; one can distinguish an immense hall with a whirling crowd. The scene grows progressively brighter. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo. An imperial court, about 1855.” Among the musical ghosts that spin about this imperial ballroom are the fourth and seventh of his Valses nobles et sentimentales. Ravel later transcribed La valse for two pianos and solo piano.      Notes by Michael Steinberg

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.