Don Quichotte à Dulcinée

Chanson romanesque

Chanson épique

Chanson à boire

Ravel enjoyed the cinema but had never written film music and had no experience of the industry. Jacques Ibert, who had been a silent-cinema pianist and who was eventually to write more than sixty film scores, was already a professional in the field. If they were both set the test of writing songs for Chaliapin in the title role of G.W.Pabst’s Don Quixote in 1932 - by which time Ravel’s health was in serious decline - the younger composer might well have proved to be the more competent.

According to some accounts, that is what happened in reality, neither composer being aware of the other’s involvement in the project. However that may be, the fact is that the Don Quixote film was made with songs by Ibert while Ravel’s were discarded. Disappointing though it was for Ravel, he must have enjoyed at least some aspects of the project. He didn’t much like Chaliapin but he was a great admirer of Cervantes and had long considered writing an opera on Don Quixote - not least because he always welcomed an opportunity to work in the Spanish idiom that he knew and loved so well. Having exploited that idiom so successfully from his earliest acknowledged score (the Sérénade grotesque) onwards, he now turned to it for one more time in what, as he might in his heart of hearts have suspected at the time, would prove to be his last completed work. Published as Don Quichotte à Dulcinée in 1934, the songs were first performed (in the orchestral version) at the Théâtre du Châtelet at the end of the same year.

The poems by Paul Morand - which were dropped for the film and replaced by the Ronsard and Arnoux texts set by Ibert - might not be of the highest literary quality but they do form a nicely varied group, with a quiet prayer in the middle to offset the chivalrous romance at the beginning and the drinking song at the end. The modesty of Ravel’s approach to the settings and the economy of his means conceal the extraordinary skill with which the French words are coaxed into Spanish rhythms and Spanish melodic shapes.

The opening Chanson romanesque - where the characteristic rhythmic pattern that derives from the mixed 6/8 and 3/4 metres of the quajira are applied to the vocal line as well as repeated as a guitar-style ostinato in the accompaniment - is a particularly attractive example and not without a gentle hint of parody here and there. While the quintuple metre of the Chanson épique might derive from the zortzico native to the Basque country (where Ravel was born), this devout, modally inflected supplication to Saint Michael - in which Quixote identifies his idealised Dulcinea with the Madonna - has only the most attenuated trace of a dance lilt in it. The Chanson à boire, on the other hand, is an unmistakable example of the Aragonese jota, recklessly exuberant in the bitonal harmonies of the accompaniment, uninhibited in the piano hiccup just before the last “lorsque j’ai bu” and, bearing in mind the composer’s state of health at the time, altogether a triumph of the spirit over physical decay.

Gerald Larner©

Chanson romanesque

Chanson épique

Chanson à boire

The events surrounding the composition of Don Quichotte à Dulcinée were not the happiest of Ravel’s life. He could not have known that it would be his last work - although, since he was so ill at the time that he could scarcely write the notes down, he might well have feared as much - but he was soon to find out that the songs would not be used for the purpose for which he thought they had been commissioned and he had a suspicion that he would not get paid for his work either.

All kinds of conspiracy theories have been advanced as to why it was that Ravel and Jacques Ibert were involved on the same project in the summer of 1932 - providing songs for Chaliapin in the title role of the Don Quixote film G.W. Pabst was making on location near Nice - but it was more likely a matter of administrative confusion. There were two script writers, Paul Morand and Alexandre Arnoux, and it could be that they both assumed the responsibility of providing the words for the songs and that each one approached his own preferred composer. Ibert, who wrote the rest of the film score, was on the set and, since he was in a position not only to coach the singer but also to write a fourth song when it was found that one was needed, his settings of Arnoux and Ronsard prevailed over Ravel’s settings of Morand - much to his embarrassment when he realised what had been going on. Ravel did find some consolation before he died, however, in the growing popularity of the songs, particularly in the orchestral version he was able to complete with the help of his pupil Manuel Rosenthal. In either version the three songs of Don Quichotte à Dulcinée form a nicely varied group, with a quiet prayer in the middle to offset the chivalrous romance at the beginning and the drinking song at the end.

Ravel was a great admirer of Cervantes and had long considered writing an opera on Don Quixote, not least because he always welcomed an opportunity to work in the Spanish idiom that he knew and loved so well. The modesty of his approach to these settings and the economy of his means conceal the extraordinary skill with which the French words are coaxed into Spanish rhythms and Spanish melodic shapes. The opening Chanson romanesque - where the characteristic rhythmic pattern that derives from the mixed 6/8 and 3/4 metres of the quajira are applied to the vocal line as well as repeated as a guitar-style ostinato in the accompaniment - is a particularly attractive example and not without a gentle hint of parody here and there.

While the quintuple metre of the Chanson épique might derive from the zortzico native to the Basque country (where Ravel was born and where he spent most of his holidays), this devout, modally inflected supplication to Saint Michael - in which Quixote identifies his idealised Dulcinea with the Madonna - has only the most attenuated trace of a dance lilt in it. The Chanson à boire, on the other hand, is an unmistakable example of the Aragonese jota, recklessly exuberant in the bitonal harmonies of the accompaniment, uninhibited in the piano’s dissonant hiccup just before each “lorsque j’ai bu” and, bearing in mind the composer’s state of health at the time, altogether a triumph of the spirit over physical decay.

Ravel did not much like Chaliapin’s singing and, bearing in mind the unidiomatic treatment of the Ibert songs in the Chaliapin recording, he was fortunate not to have witnessed his Don quichotte à Dulcinée being distorted in the same way. Although it is clearly intended for a low male voice, he would surely rather have heard the work performed by a good mezzo-soprano than a self-indulgent baritone or bass.

Chanson romanesque

Chanson épique

Chanson à boire

Ravel enjoyed the cinema but had never written film music and had no experience of the industry. Jacques Ibert, who had been a silent-cinema pianist and who was eventually to write more than sixty film scores, was already a professional in the field. If they were both set the test of writing songs for Chaliapin in the title role of G.W.Pabst’s Don Quixote in 1932 - by which time Ravel’s health was in serious decline - the younger composer might well have proved to be the more competent.

According to some accounts, that is what happened in reality, neither composer being aware of the other’s involvement in the project and Ibert being highly embarrassed when he found that his work had been preferred to Ravel’s. It is said that Falla, Milhaud and Delannoy were also invited to take part in this highly dubious competition. However that may be - and it could have been no more than a case of the ailing Ravel being late in delivering his score and Ibert being called in to replace him - the Don Quixote film was made with songs by Ibert while Ravel’s were discarded. For Ravel, who had had such trouble with his physical co-ordination that he had scarcely been able to write the notes down, it was a bitter disappointment, compounded apparently by the film studio’s failure to pay him for his efforts. He did find some consolation, however, in the growing popularity of the orchestral version, which was largely the work of his pupil Manuel Rosenthal, during the last years of his life.

Although Ravel didn’t much like Chaliapin, he was a great admirer of Cervantes and had long considered writing an opera on Don Quixote - not least because he always welcomed an opportunity to work in the Spanish idiom that he knew and loved so well. Having exploited that idiom so successfully from his earliest acknowledged score (the Sérénade grotesque) onwards, he now turned to it for one more time in what, as he might in his heart of hearts have suspected at the time, would prove to be his last completed work. Published as Don Quichotte à Dulcinée in 1934, the songs were first performed (in the orchestral version) at the Théâtre du Châtelet at the end of the same year.

The poems by Paul Morand - which were dropped for the film and replaced by the Ronsard and Arnoux texts set by Ibert - might not be of the highest literary quality but they do form a nicely varied group, with a quiet prayer in the middle to offset the chivalrous romance at the beginning and the drinking song at the end. The modesty of Ravel’s approach to the settings and the economy of his means conceal the extraordinary skill with which the French words are coaxed into Spanish rhythms and Spanish melodic shapes.

The opening Chanson romanesque - where the characteristic rhythmic pattern that derives from the mixed 6/8 and 3/4 metres of the quajira are applied to the vocal line as well as repeated as a guitar-style ostinato in the accompaniment - is a particularly attractive example and not without a gentle hint of parody here and there. While the quintuple metre of the Chanson épique might derive from the zortzico native to the Basque country (where Ravel was born), this devout, modally inflected supplication to Saint Michael - in which Quixote identifies his idealised Dulcinea with the Madonna - has only the most attenuated trace of a dance lilt in it. The Chanson à boire, on the other hand, is an unmistakable example of the Aragonese jota, recklessly exuberant in the bitonal harmonies of the accompaniment, uninhibited in the piano hiccup just before the last “lorsque j’ai bu” and, bearing in mind the composer’s state of health at the time, altogether a triumph of the spirit over physical decay.

Gerald Larner©

Ibert, Ravel and Don Quixote

No one really knows why it is that Ibert and Ravel came to write songs for the same film - G.W. Pabst’s Don Quichotte - at the same time. There are all kinds of theories, many of them presented as fact, but since even those which could be true are mutually contradictory there is no point in reviewing them here. Not one of the many commentators on the situation has taken into account, however, that Ravel’s Don Quichotte songs are set to words by Paul Morand and Ibert’s to words mainly by Alexandre Arnoux. This might well be a clue to the solution of the mystery. Morand and Arnoux were both employed as writers on the film, the former being entrusted with the scenario and the latter with the dialogue. But since Quixote himself was to be performed by no other than the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin, who would naturally be required to sing at least three or four songs, which one of them would provide the words for the songs, Morand or Arnoux? It is not unlikely that the two writers independently got to work on the song texts and then turned to the composers they favoured - Morand to his old friend Ravel and Arnoux to Ibert, who was writing the rest of the film score anyway. For whatever reason, but probably the ailing Ravel’s slow progress in delivering the work, Arnoux and Ibert won the day.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée

Chanson romanesque

Chanson épique

Chanson à boire

Although Ravel started on his songs for the Don Quichotte film at the same time as Ibert started on his, in the summer of 1932, they were still unfinished when the shooting was over and Ibert’s music incorporated in the sound track. He was never a quick worker and now, when he was having such trouble with his physical co-ordination that he could scarcely write the notes down, he was slower still. He persevered, however, and while it was a disappointment that his songs were not used in the film - and that the studio failed to pay him for his efforts - he did find some consolation in the last years of his life in the growing popularity of the orchestral version (which he would not have been able to complete without the help of his pupil Manuel Rosenthal).

Ravel didn’t much like Chaliapin, who was to sing the song in the film, but he was a great admirer of Cervantes and had long considered writing an opera on Don Quixote - not least because he always welcomed an opportunity to work in the Spanish idiom that he knew and loved so well. Having exploited that idiom so successfully from his earliest acknowledged score onwards, he now turned to it for one more time in what would prove to be his last work. Published as Don Quichotte à Dulcinée in 1934, the songs were first performed (in the orchestral version) at the Théâtre du Châtelet at the end of the same year.

The poems by Paul Morand might not be of the highest literary quality but they are no worse than Arnoux’s and they do form a nicely varied group, with a quiet prayer in the middle to offset the chivalrous romance at the beginning and the drinking song at the end. The modesty of Ravel’s approach to the settings and the economy of his means conceal the extraordinary skill with which the French words are coaxed into Spanish rhythms and Spanish melodic shapes. The opening Chanson romanesque - where the characteristic rhythmic pattern that derives from the mixed 6/8 and 3/4 metres of the quajira are applied to the vocal line as well as repeated as a guitar-style ostinato in the accompaniment - is a particularly attractive example and not without a gentle hint of parody here and there.

While the quintuple metre of the Chanson épique might derive from the zortzico native to the Basque country (where Ravel was born), this devout, modally inflected supplication to Saint Michael - in which Quixote identifies his idealised Dulcinea with the Madonna - has only the most attenuated trace of a dance lilt in it. The Chanson à boire, on the other hand, is an unmistakable example of the Aragonese jota, recklessly exuberant in the bitonal harmonies of the accompaniment, uninhibited in the orchestral hiccup just before the each “lorsque j’ai bu” and, bearing in mind the composer’s state of health at the time, altogether a triumph of the spirit over physical decay.

Chanson romanesque

Si vous me disiez que la terre

à tant tourner vous offensa,

je lui dépêchera Pança;

vous la verriez fixe et se taire.

Si vous me disiez que l’ennui

vous vient du ciel trop fleuri d’astres,

déchirant les divins cadastres,

je faucherais d’un coup la nuit.

Si vous me disiez que l’espace

ainsi vidé ne vous plaît point,

chevalier dieu, la lance au poing,

j’étoilerais le vent qui passe.

Mais si vous disiez que mon sang

est plus à moi qu’à vous, ma Dame,

je blêmirais dessous le blâme

et je mourrais, vous bénissant.

Ô Dulcinée.

Romanesque Song

If you told me that the earth

offends you by turning so much,

I would dispatch Panza there:

you would see it still and silent.

If you told me that you are tired

of seeing a sky too flowery with stars,

tearing up divine order,

with one stroke I would scythe away the night.

If you told me that the space

I have made doesn’t please you either,

god and knight, lance in hand,

I would sow stars in the passing wind.

But if you told me that my blood

is more mine than yours, my Lady,

I would blench under your reproach

and I would die, blessing you.

O Dulcinea.

Chanson épique

Bon Saint-Michel qui me donnez loisir

de voir ma Dame et de l’entendre,

bon Saint-Michel qui me daigne choisir

pour lui complaire et la défendre,

bon Saint-Michel veuillez descendre

avec Saint-Georges sur l’autel

de la Madone au bleu mantel.

D’un rayon du ciel bénissez ma lame

et son égale en pureté

et son égale en piété

comme en pudeur et chasteté:

ma Dame.

Ô grand Saint-Georges et Saint-Michel

l’ange qui veille sur ma veille,

ma douce Dame si pareille

à vous, Madone au bleu mantel!

Amen.

Epic Song

Good Saint Michael who gives me leave

to see my Lady and to hear her,

good Saint Michael who has deigned

to choose me to serve and defend her,

good Saint Michael I pray you descend

with Saint George upon the altar

of the Madonna with the blue mantle.

With a ray from heaven bless my sword

and its equal in purity

and its equal in piety

as in modesty and chastity:

my Lady.

O great Saint George and Saint Michael

the angel who watches over my vigil

my sweet Lady so alike

to you, Madonna of the blue mantle.

Amen.

Chanson à boire

Foin du bâtard, illustre Dame,

qui pour me perdre à vos deux yeux,

dit que l’amour et le vin vieux

mettent en deuil mon coeur, mon âme!

Je bois à la joie!

La joie est le seul but

où je vais droit…

lorsque j’ai bu!

Foin du jaloux, brune maîtresse,

qui geind, qui pleur et fait serment

d’être toujours ce pâle amant

qui met de l’eau dans son ivresse!

Je bois à la joie!

La joie est le seul but

où je vais droit

lorsque j’ai bu!

(Paul Morand)

Drinking Song

To hell with the bastard, illustrious Lady,

who to shame me in your sweet eyes

says that love and old wine

bring misery to my heart, my soul!

I drink to joy!

Joy is the one goal

I reach straight away

When I have drunk!

To hell with the jealous fool, dark mistress,

who whines, who weeps and swears

to be always the pale lover

who waters down his drinking!

I drink to joy!

Joy is my only goal

which I reach straight away

When I have drunk!

(Translations by Gerald Larner)