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Main street winston salem news12/31/2023 ![]() Each element is drawn, its own momentum magnetized, into the wider whole. ![]() Gradually the parts find each other–the martial fanfare, the vigorous trot, the sweet obligato, the sweeping major melody. The work opens rather with an adumbration of the individual parts, which will compose the whole: fragments of waltz themes, scattered over a brooding stillness. Schorske gives an impressive characterization of the piece, viewing it as a metaphor for the “violent death of the nineteenth-century world”:Īlthough Ravel celebrates the destruction of the world of the waltz, he does not initially present that world as unified. The pulse is further colored by fragments of melodies and washes of orchestral sound. La valse begins with low-pitched instruments, setting a sinister tone as the pulse of the triple-meter dance is established. Versions of La valse also exist for solo piano and for two pianos, although it is not entirely clear as to whether these preceded or followed the orchestral version. Ida Rubinstein, for whom Ravel composed his Boléro, staged La valse as a ballet in Paris on May 23, 1929, but the piece is still more commonly heard on concert programs. La valse received a concert performance with Camille Chevillard conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra on Decemto considerable critical acclaim. This rejection precipitated a permanent break between Ravel and Diaghilev. Yet, as Erik Satie observed: “Ravel refuses the Legion of Honor, but all of his music accepts it.” Unfortunately, the impresario, Sergei Diaghilev, with whom Ravel and so many other important composers (including Stravinsky) had worked, refused to accept La valse as a ballet, calling it a “masterpiece,” but more a “portrait of a ballet” than a scenario for a ballet proper. Ravel’s refusal to accept the Legion of Honor in 1920 is further evidence of his single-minded independent spirit. Interestingly, Ravel refused to join his colleagues in endorsing an official French ban on modern German and Austrian music during the war, asserting, according to Arbie Orenstein, that “the best way to defend French music would be for French composers to write good music” (Ravel: Man and Musician, New York, 1975). ![]() As for the war (Ravel served in the French army as a truck driver), it seems entirely plausible that this experience caused the composer to see the Viennese waltz in a different light. Letters from the end of 1919, when Ravel was finishing La valse, bear witness to his continuing grief. The death of Marie Delouart Ravel on Janucame as a devastating blow from which the composer would in some respects never recover. Aside from its purely musical evolution, one also ought to take into account the impact of two tragedies–one personal and the other global–the death of the composer’s mother, and the First World War. The work we know as La valse (The Waltz), choreographic poem for orchestra, completed in 1920, underwent many changes since its initial conception in 1906 under the provisional title (by 1914) of Wien (Vienna), “an apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, linked in my mind with the impression of a fantastic whirl of destiny” and homage to Johann Strauss. Symphonic poem or ballet? Virtuoso work for piano or orchestral show piece? Sentimental reminiscence of Imperial Vienna or frenetic dance of death? La valse has at one time or another represented all of these things, and more. The work was last performed by the Winston-Salem Symphony on January 7, 8, with Peter Perret conducting. It is orchestrated for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, glockenspiel, 2 harps, and strings. La valse had its first performance in Paris with Camille Chevillard conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra on December 12, 1920. Maurice Ravel was born Maof parents of Swiss and Basque descent in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées.
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