Maurice Ravel
La Valse
"Through rifts in swirling clouds, couples are glimpsed waltzing. As the clouds disperse little by little, one sees an immense hall peopled
with a whirling crowd [letter A in the score]. The scene becomes progressively
brighter. The light from chandeliers bursts forth at fortissimo [letter B in the
score]. An Imperial Court, around 1855."
So reads the note in the score to Ravel's La Valse. He had thought of writing
an orchestral tribute to Johann Strauss Jr., to be called Wien (Vienna), as
early as 1906. In 1919 he decided to make the idea a reality when he took a
commission from Serge Diaghilev to write a piece for the Ballets Russes. By that
time, however, World War I and its aftermath had shattered nostalgic fantasies
of Viennese balls. So when Ravel looked back to his former goal of writing "a
kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, mingled ... with the idea of destiny's
fantastic whirl," the destiny Ravel imagined was not gentle or charming, but
apocalyptic. The composer George Benjamin describes the music's effect: "Whether
or not it was intended as a metaphor for the predicament of European
civilization in the aftermath of the Great War, its one-movement design plots
the birth, decay and destruction of a musical genre: the waltz."
Ravel played a four-hand piano reduction of the work for Diaghilev, Igor
Stravinsky, Francis Poulenc, and several other guests in 1920. According to
Poulenc, Diaghilev pronounced it "a masterpiece," but said that it was not a
ballet but "the painting of a ballet." Poulenc was shocked on his mentor Ravel's
behalf, writing that Ravel provided "a lesson in modesty" by simply leaving the
room. But Ravel never worked with Diaghilev again.
Ravel published the work with the subtitle un poème choréographique (a
choreographic poem) and premiered it in December, 1920, with the Lamoureux
Orchestra in Paris. It was a hit in the concert hall, and in 1928 Bronislava
Nijinska proved Diaghilev wrong by choreographing La Valse for the dance company
of Ida Rubinstein. Unfortunately, Rubinstein also premiered a ballet for Ravel's
Boléro a few days later, eclipsing La Valse. Finally, in 1951, George Balanchine
(Diaghilev's former student) premiered a successful dance for the New York City
Ballet based on La Valse and Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales, a 1911
keyboard suite based on works by Franz Schubert.
The first evidence that La Valse is not a straight parroting of the older
waltz form comes in the opening bars, when bassoons, double-basses, and a bass
drum play fragments of a waltz, as if heard in snatches from a distance. String
mists obscure Ravel's dancing couples, who are finally revealed by a stroke on
the harp that unleashes a lushly scored melody for the full orchestra. A series
of alternately sweet, brisk, or grand waltz variations follows. The work seems
headed toward a climax when the bassoons and string mists from the opening
return. As melodies from the the original variations are sounded, the fluttering
woodwinds, swirling strings, and swelling brass become ominous, threatening. Our
nostalgic memories have taken a dark and unexpected turn, and as the gong
crashes and the propulsive waltz melodies become inescapable, the dancers are
caught up "in destiny's fantastic whirl." The final bar -- the only one not in
waltz time -- brings the music to an abrupt and emphatic close.
September 27, 2008
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