Valses nobles et sentimentales

…

The Valses nobles et sentimentales are also revivalist in the sense that, as the title indicates, they are a tribute to Franz Schubert. Some of his keyboard waltzes are overtly echoed here, though in a harmonic language so advanced that it left the audience at the first performance in Paris in 1911 in a state of bewilderment. The last waltz in the sequence, on the other hand, is not so much Schubert as Johann Strauss - “I love those wonderful rhythms,” Ravel once declared - and is a clear anticipation of La Valse: It is followed by a highly poetic Epilogue which acts as an impressio­nistic kind of recapitulation by recalling more or less distinct images of all except the fifth of the seven preceding waltzes.

Modéré, très franc - Assez lent, avec une expression intime - Modéré - Assez animé - Presque lent, dans un sentiment intime - Vif - Moins vif - Epilogue: Lent

The first performance of the Valses nobles et sentimentales in Paris in May 1911 was not one of Ravel’s happiest concert-hall experiences. The occasion was a concert of the Société Musicale Indépendente which was trying out the idea of presenting new music anonymously and asking the audience to name the composers afterwards. Only a tiny proportion of the audience identified the authorship of the Valses correctly and, worse still, knowledgeable friends who were confident that Ravel could have nothing to do with it, greeted the new work with boos and jeers.

Actually, there was some excuse for an audience being taken aback by the heavily dissonant harmonies at the beginning of the work, for dismissing the assault of unresolved appogiaturas as either an accident or a hoax, and for finding nothing there to remind them of the Ravel they thought they knew. Contrasting the Valses with the virtuoso pieces in Gaspard de la Nuit. Ravel himself referred to “a style that is simpler and clearer, in which the harmony is harder.” He had clearly underestimated the effect those “harder” harmonies would have, particularly in a work inviting comparison with the Valses nobles and the Valses sentimentales of Franz Schubert. Schubert is certainly there, as are Chopin and Chabrier, but little of this can have been obvious to the audience in 1911.

The distinction between “noble” and “sentimental” is no clearer in Ravel’s waltzes than it is in Schubert’s. It is possible, almost, to trace an alternation of quicker and slower tempi in Ravel’s sequence, with a corresponding alternation of dances in mainly detached articulation and dances in mainly legato articulation, the latter often associated with dotted rhythms. The composer declared that the seventh to be “the most characteristic” of the Valses nobles et sentimentales. Certainly, in its stylistic alignment to Johann Strauss rather than Schubert, it is a clear anticipation of La Valse and, in its reconciliation of the conflicting rhythmic and harmonic interests of left hand and right in the middle section, the most ingenious. It is followed by a highly poetic Epilogue which acts as an impressio­nistic kind of recapitulation by recalling more or less clear images of all except the fifth of the preceding waltzes.

Modéré

Assez lent

Modéré

Assez animé

Presque lent

Vif

Moins vif

Epilogue: lent

The first performance of the Valses nobles et sentimentales, in its original solo-piano version, in Paris in May 1911 was not one of Ravel’s happiest concert-hall experiences. The occasion was a concert of the Société Musicale Indépendente which, as a radical organisation recently set up in competition with the comparatively long-established Société Nationale de Musique,    was trying out the idea of presenting new music anonymously and asking the audience to identify the composers afterwards.

Having been influential in forming the SMI and being a member of the steering committee, Ravel no doubt felt that it would be a good thing to have his latest score introduced in that way - only to find that, although a tiny proportion of the audience identified the authorship of the Valses correctly, there were votes also for Satie, Kodály and even (a joke surely) the reactionary pedagogue Théodore Dubois. Worse still, knowledgeable friends who were confident that Ravel could have nothing to do with it, greeted the new work with boos and jeers while the composer, in keeping with the spirit of the occasion, attempted to keep a straight face.

He had little more luck when, a few months later, he orchestrated the Valses nobles et sentimentales for a short ballet to his own libretto, Adélaïde, ou le langage des fleurs, which was given a couple of performances at the Théâtre du Châtelet in June 1912. In the concert hall, however, liberated from its ballet scenario, the work has been very much more successful. What the composer himself described as its “hard” harmonies, which seemed so incongruous in piano music inviting comparison with the Valses nobles and the Valses sentimentales of Franz Schubert, proved to be much less disconcerting in the orchestral version.

The distinction between “noble” and “sentimental” is no clearer in Ravel’s waltzes than it is in Schubert’s. It is possible, almost, to trace an alternation of quicker and slower tempi in Ravel’s sequence, with a corresponding alternation of dances in mainly detached and mainly legato articulation, the latter often associated with dotted rhythms. But it is not as simple as that. The prominently percussive first waltz, for example, has a gently if fleetingly legato countersubject introduced by bassoon. The second waltz, on the other hand, with its plaintive woodwind, is definitely “sentimental.” The third, a charming stray from Ma mère l’Oye, twice foreshadows the syncopated main theme of the fourth which, in spite of its legato phrasing and dotted rhythms, breaks the quick-slow tempo pattern by being quicker than its predecessor. So, of the next pair of waltzes, the intimately expressive and exquisitely harmonised fifth is the “sentimental” partner and the sixth, which is a quicker variant of the third, is its “noble” counterpart.

The composer declared that the seventh “is the most characteristic” of the Valses nobles et sentimentales. Certainly, in its stylistic alignment to Johann Strauss rather than Schubert, it is a clear anticipation of Ravel’s later apotheosis of the Viennese waltz in La Valse. It is followed by a highly poetic Epilogue which acts as an impressio­nistic kind of recapitulation by recalling more or less clear images of all except the fifth of the preceding waltzes.

Modéré

Assez lent

Modéré

Assez animé

Presque lent

Vif

Moins vif

Epilogue: lent

The first performance of the Valses nobles et sentimentales in Paris in May 1911 was not one of Ravel’s happiest concert-hall experiences. The occasion was a concert of the Société Musicale Indépendente which, as a radical organisation recently set up in competition with the long-established Société Nationale de Musique, was trying out the idea of presenting new music anonymously and asking the audience to identify the composers afterwards. Having been influential in forming the SMI and being a member of the steering committee, Ravel no doubt felt that it would be a good thing to have his latest score introduced in that way - only to find that, although a tiny proportion of the audience identified the authorship of the Valses correctly, there were votes also for Satie, Kodaly and even (a joke surely) the reactionary pedagogue Théodore Dubois. Worse still, knowledgeable friends who were confident that Ravel could have nothing to do with it, greeted the new work with boos and jeers while the composer, in keeping with the spirit of the occasion, attempted to keep a straight face.

Actually, taking the period of the composition into account, there was some excuse for an audience being taken aback by the heavily dissonant harmonies at the beginning of the work, dismissing the assault of unresolved appogiaturas as either an accident or a hoax, and finding nothing there to remind them of the Ravel they thought they knew. Contrasting the Valses with the virtuoso pieces in Gaspard de la Nuit, Ravel himself referred to “a style that is simpler and clearer, in which the harmony is harder.” He had clearly underestimated the effect those “harder” harmonies would have, however, particularly in a work inviting comparison with the Valses nobles and the Valses sentimentales of Franz Schubert. Schubert is certainly there, as are Chopin and Chabrier, but little of this can have been obvious to the SMI audience in 1911.

The distinction between “noble” and “sentimental” is no clearer in Ravel’s waltzes than it is in Schubert’s. It is possible, almost, to trace an alternation of quicker and slower tempi in Ravel’s sequence, with a corresponding alternation of dances in mainly detached and mainly legato articulation, the latter often associated with dotted rhythms. But it is not as simple as that. The predominantly percussive first waltz, for example, has a gently if fleetingly legato countersubject; the definitely “sentimental” second waltz includes distant allusions to the other kind; the third waltz, a playful stray from Ma mère l’Oye, twice foreshadows the main theme of the fourth which, in spite of its legato phrasing and dotted rhythms, breaks the tempo pattern by being quicker than its predecessor. So, of the next pair of waltzes, the intimately expressive and exquisitely harmonised fifth is the “sentimental” partner and the sixth, which is a quicker variant of the third, is its “noble” counterpart.

The composer declared that the seventh “is the most characteristic” of the Valses nobles et sentimentales. Certainly, in its stylistic alignment to Johann Strauss rather than Schubert, it is a clear anticipation of La Valse and, in its reconciliation of the conflicting rhythmic and harmonic interests of left hand and right in the middle section, the most ingenious. It is followed by a highly poetic Epilogue which acts as an impressio­nistic kind of recapitulation by recalling more or less clear images of all except the fifth of the preceding waltzes.

The Valses nobles et sentimentales in both the piano and the orchestral versions (the latter arranged for the ballet Adélaïde, ou le langage des fleurs in 1912) are dedicated to Louis Aubert, the pianist who gave the uncomfortable first performance in the Salle Gaveau in 1911.