‘revealed Debussy to me and to those of De fleurs, the third of Debussys Proses iyriques (Ex. 1.20) Lent teat : ‘ » m4 Example 1.2c. Debussy, opening of De fleurs Both the third and fourth of the Proses Iyriques had been premiered at the SNM on 17 February 1894 with Debussy accompanying his then fiancée, "Thérése Roger. Debussy’s own text, describing ‘the empty, green boredom of the hothouse of grief’ is obviously not far removed from Verlaine’ ‘a vast, dark sleep descends on my life. Faced with a shorter text, Ravel experiments with @ total retention of the initial undulating pattern and produces a song of unre lieved gloom whose intensity is heightened by a vocal line that extends over two octaves. Iis the picture of a young manis despair, a not wholly convincing piece, but an instructive glimpse of the dark side of Ravel’ nature that was to show itself throughout his career. The two other pieces he wrote towards the end of 1895 belong to worlds that, hrave come to be seen as more essentially Ravelian. ‘The Menuet antique for piano was the first of Ravel’ five minuets for the instrument (including a brief but charming one of 1904, published recently). Unlike the Sérénade grotesque, the Menuet antique sported its arguably spurious epithet from the beginning. If one response to the bourgeois nature of the Third Republic was to hurl bombs, another was to withdraw in imagination to the safe enclave of a previous century, and the adjective ‘antique’ leaves no doubt that this was what Ravel was trying to do. (He never wrote a Menuet moderne, even if the “Menuet in Le fombeau de Couperin is more than it seems; see p. 194) ‘Within its conventional ternary framework, the Menuet antique holds a few gentle surprises. It is not unfair to call the piece ‘pseudoantique'®” Ravel's ideas of classical history were, as he admitted over Daphnis et Chlog, filtered through the illustrations ofthe late eighteenth century. His imagined era was one where social order, embodied in the minuet, was mysteriously reconciled with the personal freedom enjoyed by the shepherd of legend, who decorously fingers his panpipes on the cover. The freshness and naivety recall those same quali ties requested by Chabrier for his “dye from the Dix pidees pittoresques, “This content downloaded from 97,122.8.73 on Tuy 16 Mat 2001 02:47:34 UTC ‘All use subject aha: tabout sor orptemsand cadential leading-notes are rather self-consciously flattened. The many sequences involve a certain amount of decorative counterpoint. Occasionally ‘modulations are a shade awkward (the move to F sharp minor at the last line of page 2), but in general there is a remarkable sureness about the succession of ideas and some textural inventiveness both in low, grumpy dissonances and in pianistically ungrateful cross-hand work which foreshadows the fourth- dominated textures of Jeux déau. The best music comes perhaps in the F sharp major trio section, where the repeated quavers of the accompaniment make Implicit reference to the middle section of Chabrier’s Menuet pompeux: Neither of these two early piano pieces gives a hint of the individuality and the maturity displayed by the ‘Habanera from Sites auriculaires for two pianos which Ravel produced in 1895 and which, in 1907, he was to incorporate in his Rapsodie espagnole, orchestrated and slightly condensed. Here, asin Un grand sommeil noir, he explored the possibilities of an ostinato, but one less rigidly organized. Instead of chords he takes merely an octave C sharp and even this is twice briefly replaced by E natural. Against these octaves he pitches a variety of dissonances, often sounding D natural or C natural or both against the intermediate C sharp, and animates the whole by the triplet-plus-duplet rhythm of the ‘Habanerat This rhythm was nothing new to the Paris of the time, but the harmonies were an amazing invention for a 20-year-old and this piece must be recognized as seminal in the development of the so-called ‘impressionist’ piano style. Meanwhile, in June of that year, M. Pessard had found his efforts in the harmony exam ‘exact. A month later Ravel filed to win a prize in the harmony exam and shook the dust of the Conservatoire off his feet - perhaps, he may have thought, for good ‘Whatever hindsight may descry about his harmonic inventiveness, Ravel at twenty still had a long way to go. Among his Conservatoire contemporaries, Vities had won his first prize for piano in 1894 and was now on the concert circuit, Alfred Cortot would shortly go off to Bayreuth as a répétiteur on the way to pianistic glory, and Reynaldo Hahn was already the darling of the salons, crooning Si mes vers avaient des ailes through a cigarette to his own accompa iment. Meanwhile Ravel was still living at home, unknown and, as far as we can tell, with no prospect of a position or job of any kind, other than the occasional music lesson such as those he gave to the daughter of a M. Goldenstein, who on 16 October thanked Vitiess mother for recommending him, As we saw, even the army did not want him.”” Meanwhile we must assume that his brother Edouard had, by the age of seventeen, already shown signs of the interest in engincering that would lead him to join his father in business. OF course itis easy to exaggerate the situation: over a century later middle-class French and Italian families continue to support their sons through their twen- ties and beyond, But Vifies, in his diary entry for 1 November 1896, while acknowledging Ravel’ position, supplies evidence that, for him at least, the superficial Ravel concealed a character of a different order: “This content downloaded from 97,122.8.73 on Tuy 16 Mat 2001 02:47:34 UTC ‘All use subject aha: tabout sor orptemsin spite of the high opinion I had of Ravel’ intellectual powers, I thought, because he is so secretive about the least details of his existence, that there ‘was perhaps a touch of parti pris and fashion-following in his opinions and literary tastes. But... I see that this fellow was born with inclinations, tastes and opinions, and that when he expresses them he does so not to put on airs and be up to date, but because he really fels that way; and I take this oppor- ‘tunity of declaring that Ravel is one of the most unlucky and misunderstood people of all because, in the eyes of the crowd, he passes for a failure, whereas in reality he is someone of superior intellect and artistic gifts, at odds with his surroundings and worthy of the greatest success in the future. He is, what's ‘more, very complex: there is in him a mixture of mediaeval Catholicism and a satanic impiety, but he also has alove of art and beauty that guides him and makes him respond sincerely" This, from the 21-year-old Vities, contains some of the sharpest insights ever made into the real Ravel. ‘Secretive, a man honest about his feelings, ‘at ‘odds with his surroundings, ‘very complex’ ~ these ring true. Less easy to accept is the ‘mixture of mediaeval Catholicism and a satanic impiety, unless ‘we know more about the diarst himself. Vites was a fervent Roman Catholic, and it is possible that what he took to be ‘mediaeval Catholicism in a Ravel ‘who was never any kind of religious believer, was merely an acceptance that “there are more things in heaven and earth’ than can be explained by the Code Napoléon. As for ‘satanic impiety, a case can be made for this if we think of “Scarbo, and perhaps even ‘LArithmétique’ in LEnfant et les sortiléges, and itis relevant to know that at some point in this year Ravel introduced Vities to ‘Odilon Redon, for whose art he apparently had a great admiration.”® We have seen too that Ravel chose to study the piano with Santiago Riéra,a specialist in Liszt, in whom Catholicism and impiety had found a particularly fruitful conjunction. But itis more than possible that Ravel merely shocked Vities with some atheistic or agnostic pronouncement. ‘After finishing the ‘Habanera’ in November 1895, Ravel was immediately involved in arranging a group of Chansons corses (Corsican Songs) for a series of lectures on the subject by Austin de Croze at the Théatre de la Bodiniére; the first two were given on 24 January and 10 February 1896, followed by further lectures in March, His old piano teacher Henry Ghys was also involved and may well have suggested Ravel, as being unemployed and in need of finan cial support. Ravel himself conducted ~ the first time we know of him in this capacity ~ and as well as soloists there were small male and female unison choirs, supported by a chamber orchestra of harp, harmonium, mandolin, guitar, celesta and string quartet. Although only about half of the orchestral material is in Ravel’ hand, the score is entirely so and we must assume that the instrumentation is his. With his habitual ear for colour he uses varied combinations from within the available “This content downloaded from 97,122.8.73 on Tuy 16 Mat 2001 02:47:34 UTC ‘All use subject aha: tabout sor orptemsresources. The ‘Sérénade de Serra sung by the baritone soloist, is accompanied simply by violin and harp, while the ‘Chanson satirique’ employs the ‘satirical, or at any rate unusual combination of guitar and harmonium. It would seem that considerable money may have been available as the baritone Marius Chambon, the only singer named on the score, belonged to the Opéra. The instrumental- ists included a member of the organ-building Mustel family, whose founder, ‘Victor, had invented the celesta, and a member of the Casadesus family ~ prob. ably the 16-year-old Henri, who was to become a virtuoso viola player. But while Ravel was the arranger, the routine nature of the harmonies suggests that they were the work of someone else, possibly Henry Ghys.” On 12 November 1895 Vifies noted in his diary that Ravel and his mother came over in the afternoon and that he and Ravel ‘talked about literature and art; he told me that the copy of Gaspard de la nuit I bought in London is very rare, We went to the Conservatoire where the ladies’ entrance examination was taking place’ Six days later Viiies and his mother visited the Ravels in their new apartment on the boulevard Rochechouart, and a week after that he records that ‘Ravel came and played me his new, strange compositions and showed me the works of Arthur Rimbaud that have just been published.”* Here we can see not only the seeds of the piano suite Ravel was to compose a dozen years later, but that he still took an interest in the Conservatoire and its doings. The strange new compositions’ would presumably have included the ‘Habanera, and possibly the Menuet antique also qualified under this heading, The first eleven months of 1896 saw no new work from Ravel. Instead we learn from Viies of joint explorations of French literature (Robert de Montesquiou, Henri de Régnier, Léonce de Joncitres, and Gaspard, which Ravel took away on 25 September) and science (Leclercq Physionomie and Cats Phrénologie). Apart from his 21st birthday on 7 March, these months seem to have included four noteworthy events, of vastly differing import for his future, At some point in the year the Ravels moved to 15 rue Lagrange in the Sth arrondissement, the only time they were to live south of the river. No reason for the move is known, although proximity to the Conservatoire was no longer an issue. Secondly, on 24 January and 10 February the performances took place of the Chansons corses, and thirdly at some point in February Marie Olénine dAlheim sang Musorgsky’s song cycle The Nursery, which was to give a new orientation to the word setting of both Debussy and Ravel But most crucial ofall for Ravel was the death of the Conservatoire Director Ambroise Thomas on 12 February, and Massenet’s resignation as a composi- tion professor on 6 May ~ not necessarily, as has been suggested by some, in pique at being passed over for the directorship,” but more likely because outside obligations were making it impossible to do justice to his teaching duties. ‘The appointment of Gabriel to replace Massenet marked a distinct shift in emphasis. Fauré had studied not at the Conservatoire but at the far less prestigious Ecole Niedermeyer; in 1892 his application for the “This content downloaded from 97,122.8.73 on Tuy 16 Mat 2001 02:47:34 UTC ‘All use subject aha: tabout sor orptemscomposing post of Ernest Guiraud (who had just died) had been violently rejected by Thomas (‘Fauré? Never! If hes appointed, I resign.”5; and one of his first remarks on finally being appointed was, ‘What would Massenet say, seeing me sitting in his chair?” In short, Fauré was a bold choice (and his election as Director nine years later bolder still - see p. 64) and testified to the perception in official quarters that the Conservatoire was in danger of becoming too conservative. Ravel was to be one of the first budding composers to take advantage of Faurés revolutionary regime. ‘The only other news we have of him before he returned to composing in December 1896 again comes from Viies. On 1 November the two of them went to the Concerts Lamoureux where they heard, among other items, the Tristan Prelude. ‘By a strange coincidence, writes Vifies, ‘at the very moment when, feeling deeply moved, I was thinking to myself there was nothing in the whole of creation as sublime and divine as this superb Prelude, at that moment Ravel touched me on the hand and said: “That’ how it always is, every time I hear it...” and in fact he who looks so cold and cynical, Ravel the super-eccentric decadent, was trembling convulsively and erying like a child, really deeply too because every now and then I heard him sobbing’ Not the least of Ravel’ achievements, then and later, was his capacity to compartmentalize his admira- tion for Wagner from his own composing process and, to all appearances, spare himself the agonizing struggles between Wagnerophilia and Wagnerophobia that racked Chabrier, Chausson, Debussy and so many others. Ravels setting for voice and piano of Mallarmés Sainte, composed that December, is dedicated to the poet’ daughter Genevieve, recently married and known to the artistic world as the distributor of hot punch at her father’ famous ‘Tuesday gatherings. The poem celebrates the calm presence of the saint in her stained glass window and, above all, the permanent tradition that she embodies. Ravel’ response is to deploy undulating chords as in Un grand sommeil noir, but in orientating them towards major tonalities rather than minor he achieves not loom but a restrained radiance that is a remarkable achievement from a man ‘without religious faith. Modality is no more than hinted at but itis noticeable that in the first two stanzas based respectively on G minor ~ D minor and C ‘minor ~ G minor, the vocal line avoids first E fat then A flat This gapped scale is responsible for much of the songs individual tone. At the same time the quasi- plainsong recitation of the opening bars eventually blossoms into a more lyrical style at the mention of the angels harp. With a neat turn of symbolism Ravel finishes the song on the dissonance of a major ninth, suggesting that the sain, ceven as ‘musicienne du silence, has a future as well asa past. For all that it recalls both Debussy’s song ‘De fleurs’ and Satie’ Prélude de la porte héroique du ciel, Sainte is technically and expressively a far more mature work than Un grand sommeil noir, representing lke the Menuet antigue, an attempt at a non-histor- ical re-creation of a past style and relying not on literal but on spiritual pastiche. It also escapes self-conscious adolescent melancholy “This content downloaded from 97,122.8.73 on Tuy 16 Mat 2001 02:47:34 UTC ‘All use subject aha: tabout sor orptemsThe second piece Ravel wrote in December 1896 was the song ‘DAnne jouant de lespinette, to which he composed a companion in 1899 to form the Deux épigrammes de Clément Marot. Rather surprisingly, he was to turn only once again to a poet of the sixteenth century, in his commissioned Ronsard setting of 1924, Elsewhere he preferred to match his precise, clearly sculpted sonorities against superficially more recalcitrant material, as in poems by Mallarmé, de Régnier and Fargue or the prose poems of Jules Renard. D”Anne jouant de Fespinette’ mixes classical and romantic features: Ravel demands the song be performed ‘d'un rythme précis, but casts it in 5/4 time with two expressive rallentandi (though the penultimate bar sets lifetime’s habit in its ‘marking ‘sans ralentir); and although the accompanying instrument is speci fied as ‘clavecin ou piano (en sourdine); the pedal marking in bar 1 and on the final two chords of the song imply a very unusual harpsichord indeed. Throughout, the rigid metre of the eight iambic pentameters is subverted by the 5/4 phrasing, but is then confirmed in the last two lines, only to be broken finally in order to throw weight on to the clinching ‘estre un peu aymé delle, The year 1897 was the last of Ravel’s obscurity. He and Viies continued their self-imposed programme of musical and literary education (Debussy's Reverie and Proses iyriques, Chabrier’s La Sulamite, Franck’s Eolides, Rimsky. Korsakow’s symphonies, Balakirev’s Thamar, a string quartet by Glazunoy, Schumann's Piano Concerto; works by Barbey dAurevilly, Lombard, Saint-Pol- Roux, Gautier’s Emaux et Camées and, as a target of mockery, General Bellemare’s LEmpire, cest la paix).” Otherwise, mediocre pianist though he ‘may have been, Ravel was earning at least some money as an accompanist. On 8 February he took part in a concert of the Société philharmonique de La Rochelle and on the 24th of that month Vifies notes that Ravel ‘is still on tour in the Midis" the fortnights gap and the fact that La Rochelle is on the Atlantic coast both imply that the tour was fairly extensive, {At some point in 1897, according to his own later account, he had moved on to study counterpoint privately with André Gedalge.” Gedalge had won a 2nd Prix de Rome in 1885 and then acted as assistant in Guirauds and Massenets Conservatoire classes, so Ravel’ choice of teacher may have been intended as a sighting shot at returning to that institution, At all events it was a choice he was later delighted to have made, as were Koechlin, Ibert, Honegger and Milhaud among many others, Milhaud recalling that the hardest but most rewarding task Gedalge would set him was to ‘write for me eight bars that can be sung without accompaniment™. This may have been prompted by Milhaud playing him the first movement of his First Violin Sonata, after which Gedalge asked, ‘Why have you got seventeen D sharps on the first page?™* The Violin Sonata Ravel wrote in April 1897 may have served to show Gedalge {hat time spent teaching him would not be wasted. In June 1929 Ravel inscribed the opening violin phrase in an autograph album, with a dedication ‘4 Paul Oberdoerffr / en souvenir de la Ire audition de la Ire sonate inachevée (18...) / “This content downloaded from 97,122.8.73 on Tuy 16 Mat 2001 02:47:34 UTC ‘All use subject aha: tabout sor orptems2% RAVEL ‘Maurice Ravel / Juin 1929°% This would seem to indicate that Oberdoerffer, who taught violin at the Conservatoire and composed light pieces forthe instrument, ‘was the soloist at the frst performance. It also makes clear that the single surviving movement of the sonata, which was not published until Ravels centenary in 1975, ‘was initially intended to be followed by another or others. Featuring an orthodox key scheme anda slightly repetitious development section, it veers rather between ranckian intensity and modal freshness. Where the two combine, as at the end, the result is striking and bearsa strong resemblance tothe style of Delius, who was in Paris t the time. The opening theme, played by the violin, shares with that of, thelater Piano Trio a Dorian outline and an asymmettic rhythm (here too possibly ‘with a suggestion of ‘Basque colouring’), but while Ravel could make something of the modality integrating such asymmetry was as yet beyond him. ‘The chromati- cally descending triads at bar 34 in the first movement would later be taken up in more sophisticated fashion, and over a tonally stronger bassline, in‘Le gibet” (bars 24-5) In the autumn of 1897 Ravel had an offer of a post as music professor in Tunisia, In a society where removal even to the French provinces risked cultural death, such an offer speaks of desperation on someone’ part. ierre-Josephs? At twenty-two Maurice certainly seemed to be taking his time. But fortune was about to move in the young composer's direction ‘On 28 January 1898 he returned to the Conservatoire to study composition with Fauré. This fact, baldly stated in many a musical dictionary, raises at least ‘one interesting question: why Fauré? Before his election to the Conservatoire in 1896 Fauré® teaching, apart from coaching the choirboys of the Madeleine, had been confined to private lessons. From 1892 he was able to give up even these, on his appointment as inspector of musical education. As already mentioned, he was a bold choice for the Conservatoire post and, in the eighteen months of his tenure, had understandably had no time to indicate that his class was to be one of the most famous and productive in the Conservatoire’ history, launching the careers of Charles Koechlin, Roger Ducasse, Florent Schmitt, Georges Enesco, the critic Emile Vuillermoz (all of ‘whom he inherited from Massenet), and the great teacher Nadia Boulanger, ‘who came to him in 1901, Ravel was the only one to arrive from outside the Conservatoire. It seems likely then that Fauré was his deliberate choice, one based on Faurés compositions. If he had attended the Société nationale concert of 3 April 1897, he would have heard first performances of the songs Prison and Soir and the Sixth Barcarolle; and on 4 November one of Faurés greatest songs, Le parfum impérissable, sung by the tenor Emile Engel. What young composer, however proud, would not be prepared to put aside pas fil ures in order to study with such a man? Not merely a genius (even if this was 4 term Ravel distrusted), but one who was clearly happy to bend the rules in the cause of at (see the two pairs of consecutive fifths in bar 11 of Le parfum impérissable). “This content downloaded from 97,122.8.73 on Tuy 16 Mat 2001 02:47:34 UTC ‘All use subject aha: tabout sor orptemsOutside the Conservatoire, the Dreyfus case was setting France in an uproar after the publication of Emile Zola letter accuse on 15 January 1898, following the acquittal of Esterhazy two days earlier. Marcel Marnat’ statement that Ravel ‘was a Dreyfusard* for which unfortunately he offers no evidence, is at least plausible, given the composer’ later Leftist views and his support for underdogs ofall kinds, not least Jews. Atall events, he had his own uproar some weeks later. On 5 March 1898, whether or not asa result of Faurés support for his new pupil, Ravel's music was for the first time performed at a concert of the Société nationale, when Sites auriculaires for two pianos was played by Vifies and Marthe Dron, and was received coldly. Larner records that Pierre Lalo, writing in Le temps, liked neither the title nor the sound’ of the pieces, while Pierre de Bréville, in the Mercure de France, went so far as to call them ‘revolting’? ‘The year before, Ravel had added to the “Habanera' a second piece called “Entre cloches’ whose title and substance clearly foreshadow ‘La vallée des cloches' from Miirs of 1905. The ternary form is somewhat crudely deployed but continuous use of perfect fourths in both melodic and harmonic guises points to Ravel’s growing concern with the sonorities one could extract from the piano, especially by a mixture of staccato touch with legato pedal. Unfortunately, his experiments with interacting planes of sound (the perfect fourths in one piano often being set against chromatic chords in the other) caused problems at this first performance. A possible creative motive for ‘Entre cloches’ can be found in Vities’s diary entry for 14 September 1896, which tells us that he and Ravel went to the Exhibition ofthe Théatre de la Musique so that Vifies could show his friend ‘the piano with two keyboards, one of which is built in reverse, Nina Gubischs edito- rial note to the entry explains that ‘at the Palais de l'industrie, Gustave Lyon, of the Maison Pleyel, had previously showed Vifes a piano with two keyboards, cone of which was constructed in reverse: the bass to the right and the treble to the lef. The instrument was probably the work of a Russian manufacturer" ~ a provenance which would only have increased its interest for Ravel. The sequence of events might be reconstructed as follows: in 1895 Ravel composes the “Habanera’ for two conventional pianos; in September 1896 he sees the new instrument; in December 1897 he composes ‘Entre cloches, perhaps already intending the two pieces to be played at some point on the new instrument; once the concert date of 5 March 1898 is fixed, then he has to write two special scores for the reversed keyboard (neither of which has survived); after the concert the conventional scores remain in Ravel’ possession and that of ‘Habanera’ is incor- porated into the two-piano version of the Rapsodie espagnole published in 1908. The new instrument had a shor life, not prolonged by this performance. We do not know whether Vifes or Marthe Dron drew the short straw of playing on the ‘reversed? keyboard. But Vifies admitted that both pieces were played badly, and that in ‘Entre cloches’ he got a quaver ahead, ‘producing an unspeakable effect In addition, the off-beat, Satie-esque title would hardly have commended “This content downloaded from 97,122.8.73 on Tuy 16 Mat 2001 02:47:34 UTC ‘All use subject aha: tabout sor orptemsthe work to the audience of the Société nationale, who were not progressively inclined: Chausson admitted that having a work performed at one of their concerts was rather like going in for an exam. Ravel no doubt was disappointed and perhaps not much cheered by one reviewer who was ‘dazzled by the fantasy and originality of these astonishing litle pieces" he always preferred right notes to fantasy. Luckily it did not discourage him from continuing experiments with new instruments all through his life. Asa rider, it may be worth mentioning that the title ‘Entre cloches’ was no more than an accurate description of te situation ‘of the two pianists, Playing on two keyboards but on a single set of strings, they ‘were more ‘among bells than they would have been on two conventional pianos. ‘A few weeks after the Sites auriculaires debacle Vitis gave the first perform. ance of the Menuet antique, on 18 April at the Salle Erard. This caused no sti, nor even @ mention in Vifess diary, but the publisher Enoch brought it out that same year, the first of Ravel's music to appear in print. Marnat points out that the last piece in Vifiess programme was a two-piano arrangement of Albénia’s Rapsodie espagnole, wisich Ravel would surely have stayed to hear; nor is it impossible that this was the seed for his own Rapsodie a decade late. ‘The earliest fruits of Ravel’ study with Fauré, the two songs Chanson du rouet and Si morne!, written respectively in June and November 1898, show Ravel still more keenly affected by atmosphere than by the material objects which play so large a part in his later work. In the Chanson du rowet a gitl sings to her spinning wheel which she loves ‘more than gold and silver, but Ravel’ involvement with this hand-driven machine is nothing like so passionate as it was to be with, for example, the clocks and automata of Lheure espagnole. Under the only really sentimental tune in his output, the piano carries the predictable rhythm and some exploratory, chromatic harmonies, whose ‘weight Ravel does not always gauge accurately Si morne! is a companion to Un grand sommeil noir. It is easy to see the attraction for the young, sensitive, withdrawn composer ofthis poem about the miseries and terrors of introspec- tion: ‘always to be folding in upon oneself in gloom, like some heavy cloth that bears no pattern of flowers: His debt to Debussy is obvious but the work has real power and demands a singer with nearly a two-octave range. The piano ‘writing, too, includes some individual textures, with arpeggios split between the hands and tangling with the melodic material in the manner of ‘Ondine, In June 1898 Fauré found his pupil ‘gifted and hardworking. Still not very far advanced in his study of fugue (first year)” He was thirty years Ravel’s senior but their friendship soon became close, based on a common respect for technique and for the conventional forms of music, and on a common sense of ‘humour (Madeleine Goss quotes the beginning of a Fauré sonnet: ‘Je regardais passer Yomnibus sur le pont / Avec cet air pensif que les omnibus ont) Nevertheless there was no question of Ravel following slavishly in his master's steps. In particular, Fauré was uninterested in orchestral effects, whereas for Ravel they remained throughout his life a subject of unfailing fascination. Both “This content downloaded from 97,122.8.73 on Tuy 16 Mat 2001 02:47:34 UTC ‘All use subject aha: tabout sor orptemsFaurés reports for 1899 contain reservations: in January he finds Ravel intlli- gent, gifted and hard-working but ‘trop recherché, trop raffiné (too affected, too refined) while in June he is a pupil ‘of rare gifts, but still unsettled in his aspirations which are, for the moment, in something of a muddle’? Its interesting to speculate to what extent these criticisms bear on Ravel’ earliest known orchestral work, an overture to a projected opera Shéhérazade, ‘which he had begun around 1895 but then abandoned for one called Olympia (ee pp. 32 and 131). But he completed the Shéhérazade overture in 1898 and conducted it at a Société nationale concert on 27 May 1899. Initially he wrote the overture for piano duet, but the idea of orchestrating it and having it performed at the Société nationale may have come from Fauré, who wrote to Chausson a few days before the premiere: T’m the one who encouraged Ravel to propose the work to our Committe. He would not have considered doing so if I hadn't pushed him... The promise of a performance has thrilled him. Surely it would be a very cruel change of heart to take his name off the programme just as hes busying ‘himself from morning til night with copying the parts? Shouldn't our Society be encouraging the young? Didnt it encourage us when we were mere begin- ners? Tbeg this favour for Ravel... A refusal would cause me infinite pain. Obviously Chausson was worried about having the piece on the programme, Part of the problem was that d’Indy, originally billed to conduct, found he was already engaged, as he explained to Ravel in an undated letter"* In desperation Ravel turned to his friend Koechlin, who refused. So it was left to Ravel himself to conduct, much against his wishes. Beyond this, even the briefest glance at the score shows why it might cause concern to Chausson, as a disciple of César Franck who had fully imbibed his teacher's views on the ‘moral import of music ~ d'Indy admitted to Ravel that he himself had been ‘very hostile to your work before it went into rehearsal, because I was seeing ‘what seemed to me the negation of everything I had considered as the princi ples of Art?” but had been to some extent won over by actually hearing it. This ‘ouverture de féerie’ demonstrates in the clearest possible light Ravel’ enthusi- asms for the music of Debussy and of the Russian ‘Five, with moral import at a minimum. The cut of the main B minor theme (Ex. 1.3) recalls the Borodin of the Second Symphony, Mouvement modéré de marche owe P Example 1.3. Revel, overture Shéhérazade, fg. 2, bar 8 “This content downloaded from 97,122.8.73 on Tuy 16 Mat 2001 02:47:34 UTC ‘All use subject aha: tabout sor orptems