Claude Debussy, Danse sacrée et danse profane

Maurice Ravel, Introduction et Allegro

Claude Debussy, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (arr. Nicolas Charron)

Claude Debussy, String quartet op.10

The instrument makers Érard and Pleyel introduced, at the beginning of the 20th century, their brand new chromatic harp. Ravel and Debussy imagined for the instrument pieces composed for an unusual ensemble: harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet for Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro (1905), and harp and string quintet for Debussy’s Sacred dances – Profane dances (1904).As a tone poet, Ravel painted a subtle music, where peace of the first bars is followed by a strangely fascinating rhythmic and harmonic roughness. For Sacred dances – Profane dances Ravel drawn a landscape where light, sound iridescence and a kind of lightness are highlighted by the harp’s tessitura.Debussy composed his Quartet op. 10 in 1892, in the same year as Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Pelléas and Mélisande. Though Debussy always rejected the landmark “impressionist” to describe his work, his Quartet, as well as the two other works, was qualified so. Mallarmé’s poem, The Afternoon of a Faun, gave birth to a tripartite score: Prelude, Interlude, and Paraphrase. Dubussy composed only the Prelude. In a letter written to H.G. Villars (called Willy), he declares: “This may be what remains of the dream, hidden in the Faun’s flute?” Picture: © Elena Bauer / OnP

Musique française

French music

The instrument makers Érard and Pleyel introduced, at the beginning of the 20th century, their brand new chromatic harp. Ravel and Debussy imagined for the instrument pieces composed for an unusual ensemble: harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet f

Debussy / Ravel

Born into a modest family in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on August 22, 1862, Claude Debussy owed his education to his godfather, Achille Arosa, a banker and art collector who lived in Cannes, and to Madame Mauté de Fleureville, a pupil of Chopin and Verlaine's mother-in-law, who discovered his musical talents. In 1872, he entered the Paris Conservatory in the classes of Marmontel and Lavignac, and later attended the composition class of Emile Guiraud. He composed his first melodies in 1879 to texts by Alfred de Musset (Madrid, Ballade à la lune) and won the Prix de Rome in 1884 with his cantata L'Enfant prodigue. However, Debussy did not enjoy his stay at the Villa Médicis and returned to Paris sooner than expected, where he lived a bohemian life and had encounters that were to be decisive for the rest of his artistic life: Paul Dukas, Stéphane Mallarmé, Richard Wagner, whom he discovered during his first trip to Bayreuth in 1888, the music of the Far East, which he discovered a year later at the Universal Exhibition, and the score of Boris Godounov, which Saint-Saëns had brought back from Russia... It was in this intellectual effervescence that his first important works were born: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894), Trois chansons de Bilitis on poems by Pierre Louÿs (1897/1898), Nocturnes (1899). At the same time, under the name of Monsieur Croche, he published musical reviews that reveal his absolute anti-conformism and his merciless sense of humor. In 1902, the premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande at the Opéra-Comique made Debussy famous. From then on, he devoted himself entirely to composition: Estampes in 1903, La Mer in 1905, Images between 1905 and 1912, Children's Corner in 1908, Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, commissioned by Diaghilev from a text by D'Annunzio in 1910, and Jeux in 1912. His last masterpieces date from 1915: the Douze Études for piano and the suite En blanc et noir for two pianos. He died in Paris on March 25, 1918. Debussy's innovative aesthetic revolutionized the history of music, breaking with classical form while maintaining formal perfection.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), born in Ciboure, France, near Saint-Jean-de-Luz, began studying the piano at an early age. He joined the composition class taught by Gabriel Fauré in 1897. His early works composed in 1898 (Sites auriculaires, Schéhérazade) were poorly received, whereas the Pavane for a Dead Princess (1899) and Jeux d’eau (1901) brought him a certain fame. His cantata Myrrha was awarded with the second Prix de Rome in 1901, while Sonatine and Miroirs (1905), two essential pieces for piano, were a step forward in his research of harmonic. In 1909, Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Fauré founded with other artists the Independent Musical Society to promote contemporary music, a movement that was hardly supported by the National Music Society. Following World War I, Ravel started a triumphant career as a conductor and pianist, touring in Europe and the United-States. Among his most famous compositions are Rapsodie espagnole (1907), Ma mère l’Oye and Gaspard de la nuit (1908), Valses nobles et sentimentales (1912), Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917), the Concerto pour la main gauche (1931). Maurice Ravel also wrote works specifically for dance: Daphnis et Chloé (1912), commissioned by Serge Diaghilev; Boléro (1928), commissioned for the dance company of Ida Rubinstein; La Valse (1920), initially commissioned then rejected by Diaghilev, and used in 1929 by Bronislava Nijinska for the Rubinstein Company. Two pieces were later adapted for dance: Ma mère l’Oye (Théâtre des Arts, 1912) and Adélaïde ou le Langage des fleurs (an adaptation of Valses nobles et sentimentales, 1912). Throughout the 20th century, many choreographers drew on his scores. Maurice Ravel also composed chamber music, melodies (Histoires naturelles, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée) and two operas: The Spanish Hour (1907) and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (1919-1925).

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