Overture Magazine: 2016-2017 Season May-June 2017 | Page 17

An elegant demonstration of this
belief, the Concerto in G was enormously
successful at its premiere in Paris, with
the composer conducting and Marguerite
Long as soloist, on January 14, 1932. Its
first movement mixes a timeless exoticism,
arrayed in Ravel’s most sparkling orchestral
hues, with a percussive, jazz-driven 20 th -
century pace. The opening is arresting: the
crack of a whip sets off dazzling, bell-like
music with the pianist playing white keys
in the right hand against clashing black
keys in the left. The piccolo whirls through
a piquant melody, inspired by the folk
melodies of Ravel’s native Basque country.
Then the tempo slows to a bluesy mood,
with wailing clarinet and muted trumpet
melodies George Gershwin himself might
have penned. Basque and Blues alternate
until Ravel dismisses the movement with
a circus-clown laugh.
Jazz takes a rest during the delicately
beautiful slow movement, which is
in the antique style of the composer’s
famous Pavane for a Dead Princess.
Playing alone, the piano sings a long,
pensive melody to which solo woodwinds
give sensitive commentary. Later, the
English horn reprises this melody while
the piano shimmers around it. A musical
perfectionist, Ravel had great difficulty
with this exquisite movement and claimed
that only close attention to the great slow
movement in Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet
pulled him through.
The finale brings back the world of jazz
with a light-hearted, high-speed chase in
which the piano is nearly always in the lead,
urged on by mocking orchestral laughter.
SubScription
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110 TH A N N I V E R S A R Y E D I T I O N
C O L L E C T O R ’ S
I S S U E
JANUARY 2017
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Instrumentation: Flute, piccolo, oboe, English
horn, clarinet, E-flat clarinet, two bassoons,
two horns, trumpet, trombone, timpani,
percussion, harp, strings.
T he F irebird (complete, 1910)
Igor Stravinsky
Born in Oranienbaum, Russia, June 17, 1882;
died in New York City, April 6, 1971
Igor Stravinsky’s music for the fairytale
ballet The Firebird, particularly in its suite
adaptation, is by far his most popular work.
May– June 2017 |
O v ertur e
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