Introduction and Allegro

A work with no direct precedent, the Introduction and Allegro is, in effect, a miniature harp concerto. It was commissioned in 1905 by Albert Blondel, director of the instrument manufacturer Erard, who was eager to promote his company’s double-action pedal harp in competition with Pleyel’s chromatic harp, for which Debussy had recently written his Danse sacrée et danse profane. Though Ravel can scarcely take the credit for rendering the Pleyel chromatic harp redundant, he did demonstrate what poetry the pedal harp is capable of and how seductively it blends with woodwind and strings. The Très lent introduction presents three seductive main themes – a voluptuously rising and falling phrase on flute and clarinet in unison, a gently caressing motif on strings in octaves, a passionately extended melody on    the cello – which the Allegro then adopts, to transforms and integrates in an effortlessly fluent sonata-form construction. The cadenza for harp alone occurs just before the recapitulation.

Ravel, his best friends would readily admit, took more than an average pride in his appearance. Invited on a yachting cruise by Alfred Edwards, influential editor of Le Matin, and his socialite wife Misia Godebska, with no less an artist than Pierre Bonnard among his fellow-guests, there was no possibility that the elegantly bearded Maurice Ravel would join the party in anything other than the appropriate costume. His last-minute visit to a gentleman’s outfitter caused him not only to miss the boat but also, very nearly, to lose the manuscript of the Introduction and Allegro which, after eight days’ concentrated work and three sleepless nights, he left on the shop counter.

Happily, Ravel’s chemisier, himself a music-lover, made sure that no harm came to the score. Otherwise we might have been deprived of the best-dressed and most attractively coloured work of its kind. It was commissioned in 1905 by Albert Blondel, director of the instrument manufacturer Erard, who was eager to promote his company’s double-action pedal harp in competition with Pleyel’s chromatic harp, for which Debussy had recently written his Danse sacrée et danse profane. Though Ravel can scarcely take the credit for rendering the Pleyel chromatic harp redundant, he did demonstrate what poetry the pedal harp is capable of and how seductively it blends with woodwind and strings. The Introduction and Allegro is conceived like a miniature concerto with a Très lent introduction which presents three main themes - a voluptuously rising and falling phrase on flute and clarinet in unison, a gently caressing motif on strings in octaves, a passionately extended melody on the cello - and an Allegro which adopts them, transforms them, and integrates them in an effortlessly fluent sonata-form construction. The cadenza for harp alone occurs just before the recapitulation.

Gerald Larner©