Date of composition: 1929-1931
Premiere: 14 January 1932 in the Salle Pleyel, Paris, by the Orchestre Lamoureux, conductor: Maurice Ravel, piano: Marguerite Long
Duration: 20 minutes
Performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker:
First performed on 21 March 1932 conducted by Maurice Ravel and with the pianist Marguerite Long
Whack! It would be hard to imagine a more provocative opening to a piece of music: a whip cracks, the violins snap their strings in pizzicato, and the piercing melody of the piccolo seems to come straight from the fairground. Trumpets, timpani and cymbals soon assume prominent roles – yet a lyrical secondary theme also emerges, tinged with the blues. Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major is rhythmically electrifying, thrillingly modern and at the same time wonderfully elegant. Divertissement was the working title, for the composer initially intended to write a work of light entertainment – but in the end he produced one of the most sophisticated scores ever composed for piano and orchestra.
The concerto is dedicated to Marguerite Long, who gave the première in 1932 at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, after the composer was forced to abandon his plan to play the solo part himself: it had simply proved too demanding for his own fingers. He did, however, take to the stage that evening as the conductor.
The G major concerto is Ravel’s final contribution to the instrument that was at the heart of his creative output. At the age of 18, he had already published a Sérénade grotesque; milestones of the solo piano repertoire include the dazzlingly virtuosic cycles Miroirs and Gaspard de la nuit. With the Valses nobles et sentimentales, Ravel brought the waltz into the 20th century, while Le Tombeau de Couperin is both a homage to the French Baroque composer François Couperin and an exploration of the viability of traditional formal models for the modern age.
In 1928, Ravel began work on two pieces for piano and orchestra. The first to be completed was the Concerto for the Left Hand, commissioned by the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost an arm in the First World War. This was followed by the G major concerto, lighter in mood and above all shaped by the impressions Ravel gathered during a tour of the United States in 1928. After its spectacular opening, the first movement remains consistently urban and avant-garde; the composer allows neither himself nor his soloist any indulgence in sentimentality. The blue notes of the second theme are swiftly brushed aside, and in the cadenza – announced by a misty harp solo – the piano remains as noncommittal as a languid lady deflecting the advances of her admirers. With renewed drive, the glamorous sound of the city pushes back into the foreground.
The slow movement leads from the New World back to Paris. The Adagio assai opens with an extended piano monologue; almost a third of the movement’s duration passes before the orchestra enters for the first time. Here, a modern metropolitan melancholic seems to be strolling through the streets of the French capital, lost in thought, moving in an exceptionally slow waltz step. Only hesitantly does he engage in dialogue with the woodwinds, above all with the cor anglais. The ending remains unresolved, as the bittersweet movement fades away on a gently oscillating trill.
The Presto becomes a homage to New York’s creative frenzy. Jazz returns, with shrill clarinet runs and trombone glissandi. Fragmentary snatches of marching music appear, ironically distorted, amid the breathless rush of sound, while the pianist turns into a percussionist, hammering the strings of his instrument in breakneck passagework. After just four minutes, the finale is already over: in the Big Apple, no one has time for lengthy discourse.