Ravel: Piano Concertos / Falla: Nights In Gardens Of Spain

Description

Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937)Piano Concerto in G majorPiano Concerto for the Left HandManuel de Falla (1876 - 1946)Nights in the Gardens of Spain (Noches en los jardines de Espana)From his father, a Swiss engineer, Ravel inherited a delight in precision andincidentally in mechanical toys, while from his Basque mother he acquired afamiliarity with something of Spanish culture. Born in the village of Ciboure inthe Basque region of France in 1875, he spent his childhood and adolescence inParis, starting piano lessons at the age of seven and from the age of fourteenstudying piano in the preparatory piano class of the Conservatoire. He left theConservatoire in 1895, after failing to win the necessary prizes, but resumedstudies there three years later under Gabriel Faure. His repeated failure towin the Prix de Rome, even when well established as a composer, disqualified inhis fifth attempt in 1905, resulted in a scandal that led to changes in thataugust institution, of which Faure then became director.Ravel's career continued successfully in the years before 1914 with a seriesof works of originality, including important additions to the piano repertoire,to the repertoire of French song and, with commissions from Dyagilev, to ballet.During the war he enlisted in 1915 as a driver and the war years left relativelylittle time and will for composition, particularly with the death of his motherin 1917. By 1920, however, he had begun to recover his spirits and resumed work,with a series of compositions, including an orchestration of La valse,rejected by Dyagilev, causing a rupture in their relations, and a number ofengagements as a pianist and conductor in concerts of his own works at home andabroad. All this was brought to an end by his protracted final illness,attributed to a taxi accident in 1932, which led to his eventual death in 1937.The two piano concertos of Ravel, the second, for left hand, commissioned byPaul Wittgenstein, brother of the philosopher, who had lost his right arm in thewar, were written between 1929 and 1931. The G major Concerto, at firstconceived as a Basque Rhapsody, was dedicated to Marguerite Long, who was thesoloist in the first performance at the Salle Pleyel in Paris on 14th January1933. Originally conceived as a Divertissement for Ravel's own concert use, itis relatively lightly scored, although the percussion section includes triangle,drum, cymbals, side-drum, gong, wood-block and whip. Ravel claimed to have takenthe slow movement of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet as a model for his Adagio,and for the composition of the whole work, which took him some time, made aclose study of scores of concertos by Mozart and Saint-Sa?½ns. The jazz elementof the first movement, with suggestions of Gershwin, yet fully absorbed intoRavel's own idiom, leads to the beautiful and nostalgic piano solo that startsthe second movement. The motor rhythms of the last movement and the livelysyncopations complete a concerto of elegance, briliance and wit.Ravel