Maurice Ravel ~ Escalera á Lenin

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Today is the birthday of composer Maurice Ravel 

   
    
    
      
     
     
     

Maurice Ravel - 1925

photographer unknown

      

He was born, Joseph Maurice Ravel (French: [ʒozɛf mɔʁis ʁavɛl]) on March 7, 1875. He was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.     

My favorite work by him is the Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Infanta). It was originally written for solo piano in 1899 when he was studying composition at the Conservatoire de Paris under Gabriel Fauré. There is a recording from a piano roll of Ravel playing it on YouTube (link below). He also published an orchestrated version of the Pavane in 1910; it is scored for two flutes, oboe, two clarinets (in B-flat), two bassoons, two horns, harp, and strings. A typical performance of the piece lasts between six and seven minutes. It is a very melancholy, slow and incredibly beautiful piece of music (link below).  

However, it is his Bolero that has become the first thing that pops into the mind of people when they think of his music. That's too bad as his work was massive; it included chamber music, symphonies, operas, ballets, choral works and many other forms (link below). 

Bolero is a one-movement orchestral work composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian actress and dancer Ida Rubinstein which premiered in 1928. It was one of the last pieces Ravel composed before illness forced him into retirement.     

While on vacation at St Jean-de-Luz, Ravel went to the piano and played a melody with one finger to his friend Gustave Samazeuilh, saying "Don't you think this theme has an insistent quality? I'm going to try and repeat it a number of times without any development, gradually increasing the orchestra as best I can." It was initially called Fandango, but its title was changed to "Boléro". According to Idries Shah, the main melody is adapted from a melody composed for and used in Sufi training.  
     
I think of Bolero, as the first real piece of Disco; the endless repetition of a simple music motif. A story I once heard was it was composed when Ravel spent a night in a hotel next to a sawmill; NOT true but makes for a great urban legend and I like it. As it is his most famous musical composition, his "trademark", I have decided to concentrate on it with an interesting film interpretation that utilized it.   
       
The 1990 film entitled, The Orchestra (YouTube link below), was conceived and directed by Zbig Rybczynski who won the 1982 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Tango. There were several segments to the film, Chopin Schubert, Mozart, Rossini and the last one, Ravel, was entitled, Escalera á Lenin (Vimeo link below).     

Zbig Rybczynski

photographer unknown

The segment is a musical interpretation of a political theme: Communism. Communism progressed one level at a time, but never got anywhere in the end, never reaching the mountain top. It portrays how communism failed to progress from one level to the next, always stuck on the same staircase (the segment was shot using one VERY long set of stairs with landings on the way). The actors do not go up to the next level of stairs but stop when they reach the top of the level they are on. A new set of performers takes over and the camera provides the illusion of progress but there is none, just endless repetition until the final collapse. The concept is brilliant!    

The music, Ravel's Bolero, was performed by the RIAS Symphony Orchestra, Berlin, conducted by Ferenc Fricsay. The film was produced by Stuart L. Weiss. The costumes were designed by Ed Falco and the computer designs were by Tara Brooke Weiss. The featured performers in the Bolero segment were Rafal Ney-Jaskulski, Meryl Newbern, Anatol Glushko and Drew Dix. The film was shot at The Zbig Vision Sgtudios in Hoboken, New Jersey. 

Ravel epilogue

In October 1932, Ravel suffered a blow to the head in a taxi accident. The injury was not thought serious at the time, but in a study for the British Medical Journal in 1988 the neurologist R. A. Henson concludes that it may have exacerbated an existing cerebral condition. In 1937, Ravel began to suffer pain from his condition, and was examined by Clovis Vincent, a well-known Paris neurosurgeon. Vincent advised surgical treatment. He thought a tumour unlikely, and expected to find ventricular dilatation that surgery might prevent from progressing. Ravel's brother Edouard accepted this advice; as Henson comments, the patient was in no state to express a considered view. After the operation there seemed to be an improvement in his condition, but it was short-lived, and he soon lapsed into a coma. He died on December 28, at the age of 62.     

Maurice Ravel, Boléro

for classical and fingerstyle guitar 

Strings by Mail

      

   
      
    
Viewfinder links:    
    
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart articles/mentions 
Maurice Ravel articles/mentions    
Gioachino Rossini articles/mentions       
     
Net links:    
     
Music of Ravel
Zbigniew Rybczyński      
        
YouTube & Vimeo links:    
     
RIAS Symphony Orchestra, Berlin ~ Escalera a Lenin 14 min. ,15 sec.    
The Orchestra (complete) 57 min., 14 sec.           
The Making of Zbig's "The Orchestra" 25 min., 03 sec.             
Pavane pour une infante défunte solo piano by Ravel      
Pavane pour une infante défunte orchestral version       

          
       
   
       

"The only love affair I have ever had was with music" 

                        ~ Maurice Ravel

      
    
    
Styrous® ~ Wednesday, March 7, 2018          

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