The profound beauty in this early Ravel piece
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 พ.ค. 2024
- Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte hints towards a slow processional dance in Europe during the Renaissance. His teacher at the time, Gabriel Fauré, had written a Pavane as well in 1887 and we see certain similarities in terms of texture and modal harmony. Ravel himself also admitted to a strong influence from Chabrier at the time and we see this particularly in his use of unprepared dissonances, the 7th and 9th, which we can see in some of Chabrier’s later pieces (Feuillet d’album 1889). In any case, the modal harmonies used constantly create an ambiguity of tonality and this contributes to a kind of distant antiquity in its character. The piece begins in G major but already in the second bar we have a small cadence in E aeolian and the melody itself doesn’t really outline G major but hints more towards E aeolian. A harmonic analysis in E aeolian seems plausible as well and I could hear bars 5-6 as a sort of half cadence in E aeolian too.
Ravel’s pianistic textures here are lean and minimal, a far cry from what will come in his lisztian-like virtuosity in Jeux d’eau 2 years later. Yet we already see some of the harmonic devices that he'll continue to exploit in later years like chordal planing, insistent pedal points and an affinity for seventh and ninth chords.
Recording (Elena Kuschnerova) : • Maurice Ravel - Pavane...
This piece will always have a special place in my heart. Discovered it in one of those piano books with a variety of other famous pieces like Satie's Gymnopedie no.1 and Brahms' intermezzo in A major but the Pavane was the one I'd immediately fell in love with. I showed the piece to my piano teacher and told her about this composer I've never heard of "reh-vl", she laughed and insisted that I listen to Ravel's Introduction and Allegro for harp, and my love for Ravel began from there...
Listen to the orchestral version, Ravel is the best orchestrator
@@duryi6399… or at least they have told you so, so you repeat it.
nothing bad in repeating something true
@@giampierogirolamo7134 Of course, but you know what I mean, don't you?
Little fun fact about this piece: Despite the name "Pavane for a Dead Princess", it's not actually about a dead princess at all. Ravel said it was actually about "a princess of the past" and that he just liked the sound of it.
EDIT: Also he was 24, WOW
I found it horribly difficult to pronounce back then, I still do.
There are some murmurings in the french horn world that the "princess" is the old valveless horn, and the new valved horn is singing in memory of her predecessor. I really doubt there is any validity there, but it's something we like to say within the horn community :)
Obviously that really only applies to the orchestrated version, but it's still cute to think about hahaha
@@whateverfinthat's a really fun idea😂
Although Ravel was rather enigmatic about the Princess, he did say it was evoked by “the Princess in the painting by Velasquez “. Ravel’s family on his mother’s side were Spanish. The painting is Las Meninas and the princess is the Infanta Margarita Teresa, the word defunte also means ‘departed’ and Ravel imho was writing as much about an age gone by, departed, as an individual.
I think I discovered this piece in mid-teens and late when I was going through a rough time at university I think I had the orchestral version on near-constant loop. It's such a contemplative, reflective piece of music. I know if's poor form to pick favourite bits but the diminuendo and harp arpeggio around 02:47 'gets me' everytime.
Who ever said it's bad to pick favourite bits?
I remember how much I cried when I listened to it for the first time.
2:09 - 17 most Ravel sounding chord progression ever
Was just listening to this before you made this video, what great timing!
Absolutely gorgeous piece of music! 🙏🙌❤️
The transition B theme from shady heart-wrenching oboe solo to ppp strings yet illuminated with warm harmonies is one of the most moving parts for me. Young Ravel's undeniable talent is sparkling everywhere in this piece.
Thank you for picking up my favourite composer of all. Please do more!
A beautiful, wistful early work of Ravel, which he wrote while attending the Paris Conservatory. The piece is at times challenging to play though it looks deceptively easy on the score.
I’ve been playing this on repeat lately!!! Then your video popped up on my TH-cam today 😁😁
I played this piece adapted for french horn for my Grade 6 I think. Its such a beautiful piece by Ravel. Did he do this for piano first and then adapt it for orchestra?
Exactly! It was very common for ravel to write his piano pieces first and orchestrate them later on, the question is whether he'd written his piano pieces with the orchestra in mind.
Ravel had a particular genius for orchestration. I don't know if any other composer (exception Rimsky Korsakov) who was as talented. But his gift for heartbreakingly beautiful melodies was right at the top. (The Mother Goose Suite). There are others of course.
Sanjosemike (no longer in CA)
This stopped me in my tracks and took me into a contemplative peace. I feel my small soft smile, closed eyes with tears, deep breathing…such beauty that gave a broken heart a desire to love again.
Wow amazing👏👏❤️
Coincidentally, I've been listening to multiple recordings of this piece and wanted to analyse it to better my own compositions.
Thanks a lot for your videos and efforts!!!!❤
Richter's version is unbeatable imo
I have been trying to write a pavane inspired by this and of course Faure's f-sharp minor pavane. It's very difficult to capture the sense of timelessness that they both do. And how does someone write a melody like that?!
The secret is in the modality and 7th chords
Thank you I love this piece!!!
So do I!
Do you think Ravel might have been partially inspired by Chopin's étude op. 10 no. 3?
How so?
@@skylarlimex I tried playing it and the lower line in the right hand feels similar, but it might just be a coincidence
@@johnchessant3012 I see what you mean. Perhaps it'd be interesting to see what other piano pieces have a similar configuration...
@@skylarlimexthe A theme from the adagio cantabile in Beethoven’s opus 13 comes to mind.
@@DevrimJan та фактура, которая в начале Паванны - это в принципе фактура, свойственная хоральным прелюдиям - как например Хоральная прелюдия f-moll Баха. Вот Вы еще вспомнили примеры использования фактуры хоральной прелюдии - медленная часть из "Патетической" сонаты Бетховена.
А если говорить про этюд Шопена N3 из op.10, то там имеено поющая фактура и в сопрано - подражание belcanto
Check out the version of this by John Williams and Julian Bream. Perfect.
Gorgeous one, even if it did take me by surprise since I'm used to hearing it on the French Horn in an orchestral setting! Which is still just as gorgeous on the piano, given the clarity of the harmony in the left hand which is not as clearly heard in the horn solo version!
It's hard to choose between the original piano versions and the orchestra ones sometimes...to me it seems like there's more leeway for rubato and interesting voicings when it's solo piano.
Good one Skylar!
Thanks Matt, hope you're well.
I hope you'll cover some bits of Daphnis et Chloé at some point!
Absolutely delicious.
This piece been remixed twice: The Lamp is Low --> Aruarian Dance.
Is it common to write the half note and have the quarter notes like that, in the first bar, instead of using tied quarter notes? (novice at music notation)
Do you mean eighth notes? I don't see any other way to write the first bar...
@@skylarlimex Yes. I see, thanks.
I would actually analyse the whole A section in E aeolian, with a v - i cadence on bar 2, a Phrygian cadence on bar 6 and a cadence on e aeolian again at the start of bar 11 (bars 8 and 9 would indeed be a ii - V in G major, but with a deceptive cadence leading back to e aeolian. The chord planing stopping on the b minor chord would then serve as a preparation for the b pedal point in the next section
I absolutely agree with you and I had to consider the two options. The cadences do seem to allude to E aeolian, though the piece does start in G major and alludes to G major quite a fair bit too. I concluded with a mid ground of sorts by doing the harmonic analysis in G major and stating that an analysis in E aeolian is completely valid. I find that Ravel's music is often ambiguously modal, even the B theme seems to be in B aeolian but the cadences are in D major...
@@skylarlimex absolutely! The whole piece (and indeed a lot of Ravel's work) seems to play with ambiguity, often leading to different completely plausible analyses, depending on how one hears the music.
@@ikego98 thanks for confirming that I'm not indeed crazy 😅
Serú Girán Reference 0:48
what piece is this?
Очень похоже визуально на тему Chopin Etude op. 10 no 3
Rachmaninoff's Elegie no 3 please!
That might be possible!
@@skylarlimex Thank you!
Name?
The real title of this piece is: “Pavane pour une Infante Défunte”. The English translation does not capture the beauty of the French expression. An Infanta being a Spanish Princess, daughter of the King. Maurice Ravel being born in the French Basque Country, he was very influenced by Hispanic culture such as "Boléro", "Rapsodie Espagne" or "Alborada del gracioso". Created in 1899 for the Princess de Polignac, her patron, this piece was first played by a friend, the Catalan pianist Ricardo Viñes in Barcelona in 1902, before its orchestration in 1910.
This is probably the saddest piece ever written in a major key.
We got to slur our rests. These notations are so strange like Jazz is strange too. Parallel 5th 01:34 Bad boy.