La Valse - Could This Get Any Crazier?
"We are dancing on the edge of a volcano,” Maurice Ravel wrote in his notes, during the composition of La Valse between 1919 and 1920. It is one of several works which seems, in an extraordinarily rich and subtle way, to distill Ravel’s profoundly sensitive reaction to the horrors of the First World War, a conflict which he had experienced first hand, and in which a number of his friends had died. Ravel loved to create musical works out of the tropes of popular style, magnifying and exaggerating their unique characteristics, and driving these stylistic characteristics to a state of overwhelming intensity . For many years, he had intended to write a tribute to Johann Strauss II. He was fascinated by the charisma and flamboyance of the Viennese waltz and wrote to a friend, “you know my intense attraction to these wonderful rhythms and that I dearly value the joie de vivre expressed in this dance.” As early as 1906, Ravel had drafted a symphonic poem entitled “Vienne,” but only after his release from military service in 1918 did he return to his sketches, possibly realising that a waltz spinning out of control and ending in catastrophe might be the most apt way to respond creatively to the horrors through which he had recently lived. The work may also have been influenced by a short story entitled ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ (1842) by Edgar Allen Poe, one of Ravel’s favourite authors. The composer wrote a vivid description of his music: “Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter: one sees an immense hall filled with a swirling throng. The stage is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers reaches its peak at the fortissimo. An imperial court, about 1855.”
In 1920, Serge Diaghilev approached Ravel to ask if La Valse might be featured on the same program as Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. Ravel played the finished composition to Diaghilev, Stravinsky and Poulenc in a version for two-pianos in 1921. Poulenc described the occasion: 'I saw Diaghilev didn’t like it and was going to say ‘No.’ When Ravel had got to the end, Diaghilev said something which I think is very true. He said, "Ravel, it’s a masterpiece…but it’s not a ballet…It’s the portrait of a ballet…It’s the painting of a ballet." The extraordinary thing about it was that Stravinsky said NOT ONE WORD! I was twenty-two and, as you can imagine, was absolutely flabbergasted. Ravel proceeded to give me a lesson in modesty which has lasted me all my life: he picked up his music quite quietly and, without worrying about what we all thought of it, calmly left the room.’'
Possibly sensing that the hyper-Romantic sensibility at the core of his score was not quite in line with contemporary fashion, Ravel became somewhat evasive about its symbolic content, writing in 1922, “while some discover an attempt at parody, indeed caricature, others categorically see a tragic allusion in it…this dance may seem tragic, like any other emotion pushed to the extreme, but one should only see in it what the music expresses: an ascending progression of sonority”. In subsequent years, La Valse has been choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska (1929), George Balanchine (1951) and Frederick Ashton (1958) but is now considered, first and foremost, one of the most imaginative, virtuosic and terrifying orchestral creations of the 20th century.
The quotation above comes from My Friends and Myself by Francis Poulenc, in conversation with Stéphane Audel, translated by James Harding.
MUSICAL EXCERPTS USED IN THIS VIDEO
Maurice Ravel: La Valse
Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France
Myung-Whun Chung, conductor
The complete performance can be heard here: • Maurice Ravel La Valse
Leonard Bernstein conducts the score from memory in 1978 here:
• Ravel: La Valse / Bernstein · Orchest...
Yuja Wang’s thrilling performance of Ravel’s piano version can be heard here:
• Yuja Wang plays Ravel : La Valse [HD]
Glenn Gould introduces and plays La Valse in 1974:
• Glenn Gould - Ravel, La Valse (OFFICIAL)
Other videos about Ravel, on this channel, include:
1. A short film about Ravel’s piano writing in Ondine from his Gaspard de La Nuit:
• Maurice Ravel's Stunning Piano Writing
2. A short film about Ravel’s piano writing and subsequent orchestration of the prelude from Le Tombeau de Couperin
• Maurice Ravel's Miraculous Orchestration
3. An excerpt of La Valse played by Matthew King:
• A Waltz for 10k
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Edited by Ian Coulter ( https://www.iancoultermusic.com )
Produced and directed by Ian Coulter & Matthew King
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