Maurice Ravel: Rapsodie Espagnole

Joseph Maurice Ravel (1878-1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France’s greatest living composer.
Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France’s premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the conservatoire, Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz.
A slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles, together with orchestral compositions.
Rapsodie espagnole is an orchestral rhapsody composed by Ravel between 1907 and 1908. The Rapsodie is one of Ravel’s first major works for orchestra. It was first performed in Paris in 1908 and quickly entered the international repertoire. The piece draws on the composer’s Spanish heritage and is one of several of his works set in, or reflecting, Spain.
The genesis of the Rapsodie was Ravel’s ‘Pièce en forme de habanera’, a ‘Vocalise etude en forme de habanera’ for bass voice and piano, which Ravel composed in 1907. This has been featured in one of our previous videos, refer: • Maurice Ravel: Pièce e...
Rapsodie espagnole has four movements.
I. Prélude à la nuit
The movement is marked ‘très modéré’; the time signature is 3/4 and the key is A major. The whole movement is quiet, never rising above mezzo forte; the strings are muted throughout.
II. Malagueña
This is the shortest of the four movements, and is marked ‘assez vif’ (‘fairly lively’). Malagueña refers to a flamenco dance from the southern Spanish province of Málaga, but Ravel’s music here has only the 3/4 meter in common with the authentic dance. The movement is instead what the critic Noël Goodwin calls “more a romantic evocation of place and mood”. Like the first movement, it is in the key of A, though slightly ambiguous as to whether it is major or minor. The movement ends quietly with a repeat of the four note phrase that opens the first movement.
III. Habanera
The movement, in 2/4 and switching between F♯ major and minor, is marked ‘assez lent et d’un rythme las’ (‘rather slow and with a drowsy rhythm’). Goodwin describes it as “beguiling and subtle in its expression of a thoroughly Spanish character and spirit”.
IV. Feria
Feria (Festival), in 6/8 and C major, is marked ‘assez animé’ (‘fairly lively’). It is the longest of the four movements. The boisterous carnival atmosphere has undertones of nostalgia, but exuberance triumphs and the work ends in a joyful burst of orchestral colour.
This performance is by the orchestra of the TCU School of Music conducted by Germán Gutiérrez.
To accompany the music, we feature a series of paintings by the Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla (1863 - 1923), who created his masterpieces around the same time as Ravel.
In 1911, Sorolla visited the United States and signed a contract to paint a series of oils on life in Spain. These 14 magnificent murals, installed to this day in the Hispanic Society of America building in Manhattan, range from 12 to 14 feet in height, and total 227 feet in length. The major commission of his career, it dominated the later years of Sorolla’s life.
The project was intended to depict a history of Spain, but Sorolla preferred the less specific title ‘Vision of Spain’ (Spanish: ‘Visión de España’), eventually opting for a representation of the regions of the Iberian Peninsula, and calling it ‘The Provinces of Spain’.
To accompany movement I. Prélude à la nuit, we present each of Sorolla’s paintings in the main exhibition room. These include (in the order of the presentation):
Castilla, la fiesta del pan (Castilla, the bread festival), Guipúzcoa, los bolos (Guipúzcoa, bowling), Galicia, la Romería (Galicia, the pilgrimage) and Ayamonte, la pesca del atún (Ayamonte, tuna fishing).
To accompany movements II. Malagueña and III. Habanera, which relate to Spanish dance themes, respectively, we include:
Sevilla, el baile (Seville, the dance) and Aragón, la jota (Aragin, the jota).
To accompany movement IV. Feria (Festival), we include:
Valencia, las grupas (Valencia, the group), Vendiendo, melones (Melon sellers), Extremadura, el mercado (Extremadura, the market) and Castilla, la fiesta del pan (Castilla, the bread festival).