|
eruanto
Guest
|
 |
« Reply #45 on: 14:49:12, 14-06-2007 » |
|
I agree about Valses Nobles etc, which really makes eruanto's claim that Ravel's piano music seems more "pattern-based" and therefore fiddly seem hard to understand. What pieces are you thinking of, eru? eh? I'm not sure I can see what fiddliness has to do with the "originality of the harmonic writing"...  The main example i was thinking of was Une barque sur l'océan, where the figuration of the left hand in the first bar accounts for a fairly substantial proportion of the piece. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #46 on: 14:52:26, 14-06-2007 » |
|
By the way:
String Quartets: For all I love the Ravel, he can't match the slow movement of the Debussy.
Violin Sonatas: Definitely the Ravel (like the Debussy very much as well, but maybe not quite as much as the Études or Jeux)
Spanish works: makes for very interesting comparisons (so different). Debussy views from a certain distance, even with a certain awe (La Soirée dans Grenade), Ravel constructs a more consciously artificial 'Spain' which he utterly makes his own (not unlike the imaginary Russia, China, etc., in the films of von Sternberg)
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #47 on: 14:53:51, 14-06-2007 » |
|
The main example i was thinking of was Une barque sur l'océan, where the figuration of the left hand in the first bar accounts for a fairly substantial proportion of the piece. But then try the cadenza from the Left Hand Concerto for something quite different? |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
George Garnett
|
|
« Reply #48 on: 15:04:50, 14-06-2007 » |
|
As for 'prefer', it's always the one I happen to be listening to at the time, unless it is Debussy orchestrated by somebody else.
Oh, Lordy! I was actually thinking of three pieces that I (and indeed tinners) heard at a concert last night but was avoiding naming names because it was pure personal taste on my part. If, as is perfectly possible, someone here has orchestrated Debussy pieces, um, I've nothing against it in principle.... |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
time_is_now
|
|
« Reply #49 on: 15:33:05, 14-06-2007 » |
|
As for 'prefer', it's always the one I happen to be listening to at the time, unless it is Debussy orchestrated by somebody else. Oh, Lordy! I was actually thinking of three pieces that I (and indeed tinners) heard at a concert last night but was avoiding naming names because it was pure personal taste on my part. If, as is perfectly possible, someone here has orchestrated Debussy pieces, um, I've nothing against it in principle.... Yes, I picked up your subtle allusion, George, but funnily enough I rather liked those orchestrations last night. (It did help, of course, that the orchestra appeared to have rehearsed the second half of the concert, which couldn't really be said for the first half.) |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
|
|
|
|
time_is_now
|
|
« Reply #50 on: 15:37:39, 14-06-2007 » |
|
Oh, and by the way: If, as is perfectly possible, someone here has orchestrated Debussy pieces ... Not as far as I know they haven't, though someone has written a rather clever piano piece which imagines 'Debussy writing [as he did] part of La Mer further along the coast in an Eastbourne hotel, early in the century, and perhaps with the sounds of the lounge of his day ringing in his ears' in order to create '[a sort of] abstract cocktail lounge music, suitable perhaps for performance in one of Brighton's seafront hotels ... The sound of a phonograph recording of Debussy playing was uppermost in my memory whilst writing the piece; a truly magical tone, luminous, deep, but never heavy. There are also (for those with very quick ears) one or two fleeting quotes from his works.' Lovely  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
|
|
|
|
time_is_now
|
|
« Reply #51 on: 15:42:10, 14-06-2007 » |
|
If Debussy sought a genuine alternative (though one which overlaps) to later Germanic romanticism, Ravel in his pre-war works inhabits some of that world but with a degree of objective detachment. I don't really see this as emotional distance in the way that t-i-n suggests (actually I find it extraordinarily emotionally intimate music), more of a fascination in the grotesque which is obtained through a certain objectification.
[...] the more radical side of Ravel that is developed in the war and post-war years. As powerfully as with any composer, I have the sense of pushing aspects of 'tradition' to their very extremes, to breaking point, sometimes cataclysmically. The most obvious piece to do this (and perhaps the greatest of all Ravel's works) is La Valse I think all of that is what I was trying to get at by talking about emotions combined with distance. I guess you've put it better than me - emotional intimacy achieved (paradoxically?) through objectification is about right. It's the 'paradoxically?' that I was trying to communicate. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
|
|
|
|
martle
|
|
« Reply #52 on: 16:51:39, 14-06-2007 » |
|
The sound of a phonograph recording of Debussy playing Tinners! I've heard those!  The one I remember above all was the first prelude from Book 1 (Danseuses de Delphes), essentially a slow sequence of quiet, full, mid-register chords with melodic lines 'built-in'. Even through all the crackle of the ancient recording, you can hear this quite unearthly, ungrounded and yet incredibly rich tone. It's as if he's barely touching the keys, it's so delicate, and yet the sound is luminous, and the balancing of each chord perfectly judged. An ear-opener. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Green. Always green.
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #53 on: 16:54:17, 14-06-2007 » |
|
I don't know if either of these people ever lurk on these forums, but the Debussy Preludes have been orchestrated twice recently, completely independently, by Colin Matthews and by Luc Brewaeys.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #54 on: 16:58:27, 14-06-2007 » |
|
The sound of a phonograph recording of Debussy playing Tinners! I've heard those! The one I remember above all was the first prelude from Book 1 (Danseuses de Delphes), essentially a slow sequence of quiet, full, mid-register chords with melodic lines 'built-in'. Even through all the crackle of the ancient recording, you can hear this quite unearthly, ungrounded and yet incredibly rich tone. It's as if he's barely touching the keys, it's so delicate, and yet the sound is luminous, and the balancing of each chord perfectly judged. An ear-opener. You can get the disc quite cheaply here. Also, there's another disc on the same label of Ravel as pianist and conductor, also indispensable, but which doesn't seem to be on Amazon UK at present, but it is here. |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 17:36:37, 14-06-2007 by Ian Pace »
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
martle
|
|
« Reply #55 on: 17:25:29, 14-06-2007 » |
|
Anyone know Debussy's Fantasie for piano and orchestra (final version 1896, although started 1889 I think)? A real gem, but hardly ever played. You hear all the early influences clearly enough (Faure, and especially Cesar Franck in this case, whose Symphonic Variations (1885) are surely one of the models for D here); but it's still our boy! Worth checking.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Green. Always green.
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #56 on: 17:36:55, 14-06-2007 » |
|
Your two 'heres' seem to be identical, Ian!
Copy button didn't work that time! Modified now. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #57 on: 17:37:26, 14-06-2007 » |
|
Anyone know Debussy's Fantasie for piano and orchestra (final version 1896, although started 1889 I think)? A real gem, but hardly ever played. You hear all the early influences clearly enough (Faure, and especially Cesar Franck in this case, whose Symphonic Variations (1885) are surely one of the models for D here); but it's still our boy! Worth checking.
Yes! Wonderful piece, shame it's so rarely played. Gieseking's recording of it is well worth hearing. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
Chafing Dish
Guest
|
|
« Reply #58 on: 21:01:53, 14-06-2007 » |
|
I agree about Valses Nobles etc, which really makes eruanto's claim that Ravel's piano music seems more "pattern-based" and therefore fiddly seem hard to understand. What pieces are you thinking of, eru? eh? I'm not sure I can see what fiddliness has to do with the "originality of the harmonic writing"... The main example i was thinking of was Une barque sur l'océan, where the figuration of the left hand in the first bar accounts for a fairly substantial proportion of the piece. I was reacting to "pattern- based" -- Valses Nobles and most other Ravel I'm familiar with is not pattern based. I was not reacting to fiddly, because I don't know what it means.  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
trained-pianist
|
|
« Reply #59 on: 20:13:17, 15-06-2007 » |
|
I was out with a friend today and told her about this thread.
She never heard harmonic major scale (as me).
She said that when she was in college they had a course on offer Debussy and Messian.
Shoud we instead compare them?
I am just asking. I am not scholarly person, but I like reading the thread.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
