Ravel's Rotunda

[snyprrr]

This Alien is contemplating a mass invasion of Snyprrr land. Our race will take all your Stravinsky CDs off you and deport you back to HOME 

"Signal rhythms coming from Andromeda Prime, Captain. Hailing frequencies open..."


"aww, shizzle"


"Captain, we're being forced to listen to 'Maggot Brain' via the Mothership Connection. Permission to load lactating HiggsBosom cannon!"

[North Star]

I concur, he's my favorite post-baroque composer at the moment for some reason.

You have truly seen the light!

[snyprrr]

I really have some stylistic issues with Ravel's... Masterpiece. On one hand, it's as refined and cosmopolitan and...hip as anything from the last forty years, but I also feel that Ravel is trying to hard, or maybe the technology wasn't in place yet for better notation, or...

or maybe it's genius.

SO, HERE'S MY QUESTION: In the 'Blues' middle movement, there is a section where the violin plays these jaunty chords, and the piano just doesn't seem to be in the same... tempo,... or,... but,... I've listened to a couple of reliable sources, and I guess it's in the score, though I can't read it very well.

What's going on here? It's sounds terrible to me...

[Mirror Image]

Quite a wonderful mini-documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/v/oFxySK-GePM

[Maestro267]

I really have some stylistic issues with Ravel's... Masterpiece. On one hand, it's as refined and cosmopolitan and...hip as anything from the last forty years, but I also feel that Ravel is trying to hard, or maybe the technology wasn't in place yet for better notation, or...

or maybe it's genius.

SO, HERE'S MY QUESTION: In the 'Blues' middle movement, there is a section where the violin plays these jaunty chords, and the piano just doesn't seem to be in the same... tempo,... or,... but,... I've listened to a couple of reliable sources, and I guess it's in the score, though I can't read it very well.

What's going on here? It's sounds terrible to me...

I didn't know Daphnis et Chloé had a "Blues" middle movement...and I'm sure it doesn't call for a piano.

[Mirror Image]

I really have some stylistic issues with Ravel's... Masterpiece. On one hand, it's as refined and cosmopolitan and...hip as anything from the last forty years, but I also feel that Ravel is trying to hard, or maybe the technology wasn't in place yet for better notation, or...

or maybe it's genius.

SO, HERE'S MY QUESTION: In the 'Blues' middle movement, there is a section where the violin plays these jaunty chords, and the piano just doesn't seem to be in the same... tempo,... or,... but,... I've listened to a couple of reliable sources, and I guess it's in the score, though I can't read it very well.

What's going on here? It's sounds terrible to me...

Well, the Violin Sonata isn't Ravel's only masterpiece. To make the assertion that it is doesn't seem like a fair judgment on your part. What about works like the String Quartet, Miroirs, Gaspard de la nuit, the Piano Trio, Le tombeau de Couperin, Jeux d'eau, L'enfant et les sortilèges, Chansons madécasses, the piano concerti, Daphnis et Chloé, or Shéhérazade? These works certainly more than hold up to the idea of a 'masterpiece'.

Oh and there's nothing wrong with the Violin Sonata or the way it was constructed. That's just your ears failing to make a connection.

[Mirror Image]

Quite a wonderful mini-documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/v/oFxySK-GePM

Has anyone seen this? It's great!

[Mirror Image]

Happy Birthday, Monsieur Ravel!

[Ravel playing his piano arrangement of 'Happy Birthday' with ravishing harmonies.]

[Draško]

https://www.youtube.com/v/RHZPg7PnNRQ

A video of Samson François talking about Ravel's music and playing Toccata from Le Tombeau de Couperin.

[Karl Henning]

I like him better and better:  he christened his lorry Adélaïde.

[milk]

I found this super depressing but also fascinating:
This week, we're throwing it back to an old favorite: a story about obsession, creativity, and a strange symmetry between a biologist and a composer that revolves around one famously repetitive piece of music.

Anne Adams was a brilliant biologist. But when her son Alex was in a bad car accident, she decided to stay home to help him recover. And then, rather suddenly, she decided to quit science altogether and become a full-time artist. After that, her husband Robert Adams tells us, she just painted and painted and painted. First houses and buildings, then a series of paintings involving strawberries, and then ... "Bolero."

At some point, Anne became obsessed with Maurice Ravel's famous composition and decided to put an elaborate visual rendition of the song to canvas. She called it "Unraveling Bolero." But at the time, she had no idea that both she and Ravel would themselves unravel shortly after their experiences with this odd piece of music. Arbie Orenstein tells us what happened to Ravel after he wrote "Bolero," and neurologist Bruce Miller helps us understand how, for both Anne and Ravel, "Bolero" might have been the first symptom of a deadly disease.

https://player.fm/series/radiolab-from-wnyc/unraveling-bolero

[Baron Scarpia]

I heard the same podcast this week. The comparison with the biologist is new, but speculations about the Bolero and dementia have surfaced before.

https://www.nature.com/news/2002/020122/full/news020121-1.html

One thing that seems to contradict the idea is the fact that the Piano Concerto for the left hand was written years after Bolero and isn't at all repetitive.

[Mirror Image]

The story about Ravel suffering from dementia while writing Boléro is BS and, quite frankly, unfounded. The composer even joked about Boléro before saying "I've written only one masterpiece—Boléro. Unfortunately, there's no music in it." This doesn't seem like someone who suffers from dementia to me. He knew exactly what he was doing.

[milk]

The story about Ravel suffering from dementia while writing Boléro is BS and, quite frankly, unfounded. The composer even joked about Boléro before saying "I've written only one masterpiece—Boléro. Unfortunately, there's no music in it." This doesn't seem like someone who suffers from dementia to me. He knew exactly what he was doing.

This podcast claims that when Bolero premiered, someone in the audience yelled, "he's crazy!" True or not, I burst out laughing from that. That's pretty funny.

[Mirror Image]

This podcast claims that when Bolero premiered, someone in the audience yelled, "he's crazy!" True or not, I burst out laughing from that. That's pretty funny.

I'm sure it delighted the composer.

[milk]

I'm sure it delighted the composer.

Probably no one laughed at the time. Sound like a Seinfeld episode now.

[Baron Scarpia]

The story about Ravel suffering from dementia while writing Boléro is BS and, quite frankly, unfounded. The composer even joked about Boléro before saying "I've written only one masterpiece—Boléro. Unfortunately, there's no music in it." This doesn't seem like someone who suffers from dementia to me. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Early signs of dementia were noted as early as 1927, including aphasia, memory lapses (losing his place when performing familiar music), deterioration of writing. Even years later, when he was almost entirely disabled, he was said to have maintained his personality and self-awareness. No one could (or would) say that the Bolero was a symptom of dementia, but the idea that a neurological disorder could influence him to go in a different artistic direction is not without support. One symptom of frontotemporal dementia is that sufferers tend to be drawn to repetition.

[Mirror Image]

Early signs of dementia were noted as early as 1927, including aphasia, memory lapses (losing his place when performing familiar music), deterioration of writing. Even years later, when he was almost entirely disabled, he was said to have maintained his personality and self-awareness. No one could (or would) say that the Bolero was a symptom of dementia, but the idea that a neurological disorder could influence him to go in a different artistic direction is not without support. One symptom of frontotemporal dementia is that sufferers tend to be drawn to repetition.

I don't doubt that Ravel suffered from a neurological disorder, but I doubt this had any effect on Ravel's writing of Boléro as he wrote both piano concerti after Boléro. That's what I was doubting. Also, after writing Boléro, there was the song cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, which, again, shows no signs of someone suffering from a neurological disorder even though he very much was at this point (1933).

[aleazk]

I'm reading Roger Nichols' "Ravel", which is a very detailed biography of the composer. Just check this, it's priceless (about the pieces on the Mallarmé poems):

[Madiel]

I'm sure it delighted the composer.

It did.