La Valse - poème choréographique

With the possible exception of Boléro, all of Ravel’s orchestral works were composed at the piano. Both the solo-piano and the two-piano versions of La Valse, for example, far from being transcriptions of the ballet score, were preliminary stages in its development. They are both finished works, however, not sketches: it was in the two-piano version that the work was first performed in public, by the composer himself with his Italian colleague Alfredo Casella, in Vienna in October 1920.

It was also in a piano version that Ravel and Marcelle Meyer had introduced La Valse to Sergei Diaghilev who, having commissioned the score for his Ballets Russes, now turned it down, declaring it “a masterpiece…but not a ballet…a painting of a ballet.” Although the composer was deeply offended by the incident, Diaghilev’s judgement was not unperceptive. It is true that in affording little more than glimpses of a whole variety of dances as they whirl past the observer, it is more an impression of the waltz than a waltz as such.

As the composer said, “I conceived the work as a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, which is linked in my mind with the impression of a fantastic and fateful whirlpool.” The fantastic and fateful events are reserved for the second half of a construction which, basically, is divided into two unequal parts. In the first part, after gradually gathering itself out of quiet and rhythmically indistinct rumblings in the bass and a few suggestive scraps of melody, a waltz-time momentum launches a sequence of more less developed dances.

As the first half ends, on a fortissimo    climax, the low rumblings are heard again. The momentum is quickly recovered but it is more pressing this time. Melodies familiar from the first half reappear but now under the pressure of an accelerating tempo, rising dynamic intensity, and increasingly reckless harmonic aggression in what the composer himself described as a “frenzy.” In its civilised context, the ending is as violent as anything in The Rite of Spring.

arranged for piano duet by Lucien Garban

With the possible exception of Boléro, all of Ravel’s orchestral works were composed at the piano. Both the solo-piano and the two-piano versions of La Valse, for example, far from being transcriptions of the ballet score, were preliminary stages in its development. As published, however, they are both finished works not sketches: it was in the two-piano version that the work was first performed in public, by the composer himself with his Italian colleague Alfredo Casella, in Vienna in October 1920. So piano sound is not alien to the work even if, particularly in the solo version, the resources of the instrument are severely stressed by the demands made on them. The problems of the solo version are, of course, simplified by the duet version by Ravel’s close friend Lucien Garban, chief proof-reader at his publisher Durand, although there is still only one keyboard to cope with an often complex texture.

It was in the two-piano version that Ravel and Marcelle Meyer introduced La Valse to Sergei Diaghilev who, having commis­sioned the score for his Ballets Russes, now turned it down, declaring it “a masterpiece…but not a ballet…a portrait of a ballet…a painting of a ballet.” Although the composer was deeply offended by the incident, Diaghilev’s judgement was not unperceptive. It is quite true that the elusive structure of the score, with its absence of set pieces and of a clear narrative thread, made it (by the standards of the day) a far from obvious candidate for ballet treatment. It is true also that in affording little more than glimpses of a whole variety of dances as they whirl past the observer, it is more an impression of the waltz than a waltz as such.

“I conceived the work,” Ravel explained, “as a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, which is linked in my mind with the impression of a fantastic and fateful whirlpool.” The fantastic and fateful events are reserved for the second half of a construction which, basically, is divided into two unequal parts. In the first part, after gradually gathering itself out of quiet and rhythmically indistinct rumblings in the bass and a few suggestive scraps of melody, a waltz-time momentum launches a sequence of seven dances. Each waltz has its own melody, its own distinctive style and its own harmonies but, though some are longer than others, none of them is more than briefly developed. As the first half ends, on a fortissimo climax, the low rumblings are heard again. The momentum is quickly recovered but it is more pressing this time. Melodies familiar from the first half reappear but now under the pressure of an accelerating tempo, rising dynamic intensity, and increasingly reckless harmonic aggression in what the composer himself described as a “frenzy.”

With the possible exception of Boléro, all of Ravel’s orchestral works were composed at the piano. Both the solo-piano and the two-piano versions of La Valse, for example, far from being transcriptions of the ballet score, were preliminary stages in its development. As published, however, they are both finished works not sketches: it was in the two-piano version that the work was first performed in public, by the composer himself with his Italian colleague Alfredo Casella, in Vienna in October 1920. So piano sound is not alien to the work even if, particularly in the solo version, the resources of the instrument are severely stressed by the demands made on them.     

It was also in the two-piano version that Ravel and Marcelle Meyer had introduced La Valse to Sergei Diaghilev and some of his friends and associates - including Massine, Stravinsky and Poulenc - at the home of the influential dedicatee of the work, Misia Sert, in Paris a few months earlier. Diaghilev, who had commissioned the score for his Ballets Russes, turned it down, declaring it (as Poulenc recalled) “a masterpiece…but not a ballet…a portrait of a ballet…a painting of a ballet.” Although the composer was deeply offended by the incident, Diaghilev’s judgement was not unperceptive. It is quite true that the elusive structure of the score, with its absence of set pieces and of a clear narrative thread, made it (by the standards of the day) a far from obvious candidate for ballet treatment. It is true also that in affording little more than glimpses of a whole variety of dances as they whirl past the observer, it is more an impression of the waltz than a waltz as such.

Something of the impressionist aspect of Ravel’s “choreographic poem” is reflected in the brief scenario which prefaces the score:

Clouds whirl about. Occasionally they part to allow a glimpse of waltzing couples. As they gradually evaporate one can discern a gigantic hall, filled by a crowd of dancers in motion. The stage gradually brightens. The glow of the chandeliers breaks out fortissimo. An Imperial Court about 1855.

But that is only half the story. As the composer said elsewhere, “I conceived the work as a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, which is linked in my mind with the impression of a fantastic and fateful whirlpool.” The fantastic and fateful events are reserved for the second half of a construction which, basically, is divided into two unequal parts. The momentum is quickly recovered but it is more pressing this time. Melodies familiar from the first half reappear but now under the pressure of an accelerating tempo, rising dynamic intensity, and increasingly reckless harmonic aggression. The ending is as violent in its way as anything in The Rite of Spring.

Although Ravel himself referred to the events in the second part of La Valse as a “frenzy,” he always insisted that it was simply intended as a ballet and had nothing to do with “dancing on a volcano” or with Vienna approaching its ruin in the First World War. It is difficult to believe, however, that if he had written his “homage to the memory of the great Strauss” as he had first intended to in 1906, it would have been anything like La Valse as he wrote it in 1919 - after his own participation in the War, the death of his mother, and the trauma he suffered as a result of both those experiences.

Gerald Larner©

After thinking about La Valse for as long as thirteen years, Ravel finally got to grips with it towards the end of 1919. The stimulus to complete the long-cherished project had come from Sergei Diaghilev who, against his better judgement perhaps, had commissioned the score for the Ballets Russes. Although the Russian impresario had no great faith in Ravel as a ballet composer – he never really appreciated the quality of Daphnis et Chloé which Ravel had written for him in 1912 – he was persuaded that music intended as a celebration of the Viennese waltz could scarcely fail to suit his purposes. When the composer first played it to him, however, at a private audition in Paris in April 1920, it turned out to be something rather different from what he was expecting.

Francis Poulenc, who was present on that unhappy occasion, recalled what happened as Ravel played through the piece: ‘I knew Diaghilev very well at that time. I saw his false teeth twitch, I saw his monocle twitch, I saw that he was very embarrassed and I saw that he didn’t like it and that he was going to say “No.” When Ravel had finished, Diaghilev said to him something which I thought was very true. He said, “Ravel, it’s a masterpiece, but it isn’t a ballet. It’s a portrait of a ballet, a painting of a ballet.”’

The problem was that, after a war in which he had served at the Front against the combined might of Germany and Austria, Ravel’s feelings about the Viennese waltz had inevitably changed. When he first conceived the work in 1906 he had thought of calling it Wien (“Vienna”) and, as he said at the time, it was to be “a grand waltz, a sort of homage to the memory of the great Strauss – not Richard, the other, Johann. You know how much I love those rhythms.” Thirteen years later he still loved the rhythms but he was also painfully aware of what Viennese waltz-time culture had in the meantime become.

Diaghilev was right. Ravel’s “choreographic poem” is indeed a masterpiece and it is true that is not so much a waltz as a painting of a waltz – except that it is two paintings, an impressionist and an expressionist side by side in the same frame. It is, as the composer said, “a kind of apotheosis of the waltz” but one inescapably linked in his mind with the image of “a fantastic and fateful whirlpool.”

The impressionist first half of La Valse, as it emerges out of the darkness of the rumbling basses in the opening bars, corresponds quite happily with the scenario Ravel published in the score: Clouds whirl about. Occasionally they part to allow a glimpse of waltzing couples. As they gradually evaporate one can discern a gigantic hall filled by a crowd of dancers in motion. The glow of the chandeliers breaks out fortissimo. An Imperial Court about 1855. But halfway through, at the height of a brilliant episode of virtuoso figuration on trumpets and woodwind, the chandeliers are extinguished and the dark rumblings are heard again. The waltz is re-assembled out of the same material but in no orderly sequence and with increasing vehemence as the rhythmic and harmonic excesses characteristic of the genre are driven to extremes. The heavily percussive climax which finally explodes a once civilised scene – the last two bars shattering the waltz rhythm itself – is a direct expression of the trauma experienced by the composer in the preceding few years.

Gerald Larner ©2003

After thinking about La Valse for as long as thirteen years, Ravel finally got to grips with it towards the end of 1919. The stimulus to complete the long-cherished project had come from Sergei Diaghilev who, against his better judgement perhaps, had commissioned the score for the Ballets Russes. Although the Russian impresario had no great faith in Ravel as a ballet composer – he never really appreciated the quality of Daphnis et Chloé which Ravel had written for him in 1912 – he was persuaded that music intended as a celebration of the Viennese waltz could scarcely fail to suit his purposes. When the composer first played it to him, however, at a private audition in Paris in April 1920, it turned out to be something rather different from what he was expecting.

Francis Poulenc, who was present on that unhappy occasion, recalled what happened as Ravel played through the piece: ‘I knew Diaghilev very well at that time. I saw his false teeth twitch, I saw his monocle twitch, I saw that he was very embarrassed and I saw that he didn’t like it and that he was going to say “No.” When Ravel had finished, Diaghilev said to him something which I thought was very true. He said, “Ravel, it’s a masterpiece, but it isn’t a ballet. It’s a portrait of a ballet, a painting of a ballet.”’

Diaghilev was right. Ravel’s “choreographic poem” is indeed a masterpiece and it is true that is not so much a waltz as a painting of a waltz – except that it is two paintings, an impressionist and an expressionist side by side in the same frame. It is, as the composer said, “a kind of apotheosis of the waltz” but one inescapably linked in his mind with the image of “a fantastic and fateful whirlpool.”

The problem was that, after a war in which he had served at Verdun against the combined might of Germany and Austria, Ravel’s feelings about the Viennese waltz had inevitably changed. When he first conceived the work in 1906 he had thought of calling it Wien (“Vienna”) and, as he said at the time, it was to be “a grand waltz, a sort of homage to the memory of the great Strauss - not Richard, the other, Johann. You know how much I love those rhythms.” Thirteen years later he still loved the rhythms but he was also painfully aware of what Viennese waltz-time culture had in the meantime become.

The impressionist first half of La Valse corresponds quite happily with the scenario Ravel published in the score: Clouds whirl about. Occasionally they part to allow a glimpse of waltzing couples. As they gradually evaporate one can discern a gigantic hall filled by a crowd of dancers in motion. The glow of the chandeliers breaks out fortissimo. An Imperial Court about 1855. After gradually gathering itself out of quiet and rhythmically indistinct rumblings in the bass and a few suggestive scraps of melody, a waltz-time momentum launches a sequence of seven dances. Each waltz has its own melody, its own distinctive style and its own harmonies but, though some are longer than others, none of them is more than briefly developed.

Half-way through, however, at the height of a brilliant episode of virtuoso figuration on trumpets and woodwind, the light is extinguished and the dark rumblings are heard again. The waltz is re-assembled out of the same material but in no orderly sequence and with increasing vehemence as the rhythmic and harmonic excesses characteristic of the genre are driven to extremes. The heavily percussive climax which finally explodes a once civilised scene – the last two bars shattering the waltz rhythm itself – is a direct expression of the trauma experienced by the composer in the preceding few years.

Another essential element in Ravel’s creative identity, apart from his passion for Spanish music, was his fascination with old dance forms - not least the pavane, which he so poetically evoked in the Pavane pour une Infante défunte and Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane in Mother Goose. The minuet was another preoccupation. His next student composition after the Sérénade grotesque was the Menuet antique and he retained an interest in the minuet at least until it was replaced in his affections by the waltz, which made a decorous first entry in the Beauty and the Beast episode in Mother Goose in 1908 and then shed its inhibitions in Valses nobles et sentimentales in 1912.

From as early as 1906 he had been thinking of writing a kind of Viennese waltz rhapsody for orchestra but it wasn’t until 1919 that he finally got to grips with it. The stimulus to complete the long-cherished project had come from Sergei Diaghilev who, against his better judgement perhaps, had commissioned the score for the Ballets Russes. Although the Russian impresario had no great faith in Ravel as a ballet composer - he never really appreciated the quality of Daphnis et Chloé which Ravel had written for him in 1912 - he was persuaded that music intended as a celebration of the Viennese waltz could scarcely fail to suit his purposes. When the composer first played it to him, however, at a private audition in Paris in April 1920, it turned out to be something rather different from what he was expecting.

Francis Poulenc, who was present on that unhappy occasion, recalled what happened as Ravel played through the piece: ‘I knew Diaghilev very well at that time. I saw his false teeth twitch, I saw his monocle twitch, I saw that he was very embarrassed and I saw that he didn’t like it and that he was going to say “No.” When Ravel had finished, Diaghilev said to him something which I thought was very true. He said, “Ravel, it’s a masterpiece, but it isn’t a ballet. It’s a portrait of a ballet, a painting of a ballet.”’

The problem was that, after a war in which he had served at the Front against the combined might of Germany and Austria, Ravel’s feelings about the Viennese waltz had inevitably changed. When he first conceived the work in 1906 he had thought of calling it Wien (“Vienna”) and, as he said at the time, it was to be “a grand waltz, a sort of homage to the memory of the great Strauss - not Richard, the other, Johann. You know how much I love those rhythms.” Thirteen years later he still loved the rhythms but he was also painfully aware of what Viennese waltz-time culture had in the meantime become.

Diaghilev was right. Ravel’s “choreographic poem” is indeed a masterpiece and it is true that is not so much a waltz as a painting of a waltz - except that it is two paintings, an impressionist and an expressionist side by side in the same frame. It is, as the composer said, “a kind of apotheosis of the waltz” but one inescapably linked in his mind with the image of “a fantastic and fateful whirlpool.”

The impressionist first half of La Valse, as it emerges out of the darkness of the rumbling basses in the opening bars, corresponds quite happily with the scenario Ravel published in the score: Clouds whirl about. Occasionally they part to allow a glimpse of waltzing couples. As they gradually evaporate one can discern a gigantic hall filled by a crowd of dancers in motion. The glow of the chandeliers breaks out fortissimo. An Imperial Court about 1855. But half-way through, at the height of a brilliant episode of virtuoso figuration on trumpets and woodwind, the light is extinguished and the dark rumblings are heard again. The waltz is re-assembled out of the same material but in no orderly sequence and with increasing vehemence as the rhythmic and harmonic excesses characteristic of the genre are driven to extremes. The heavily percussive climax which finally explodes a once civilised scene - the last two bars shattering the waltz rhythm itself - is a direct expression of the trauma experienced by the composer in the preceding few years.