Maurice Ravel's Stunning Piano Writing 

Thank you so much. Nice comments like this make it all worth while!

I agree. This is NOT one of your run'-of-the mill analysis of a musical segment by a great and humble composer. This is an Inspired harmonic dissection that's also entertaining. Good job.

AGREE!

I had no idea Coltrane borrowed from this!

Your caps lock is on- oh, wait no you got it. Wait now it’s back on again

Nice quote of one of the greatest pianists ever. (Concerning one of the greatest composer ever I think) A long time ago he participated at the famous belgian piano concour and he had the choice between an Steinway D and a belgian concert grand (Hautrive Brussels 1935) He prefered this unknown brand and as a piano restorer I had to prepare this old timer for a Ravel recording in the museum for music instruments last year. Very nice and mysterious « Ravelian » sound.

@@Cemballo That is a very interesting story. Michelangeli was famous for his perfectionism not only in terms of the almost impossibly high standards he aimed for in his playing, but also with regard to the condition of his pianos. He often travelled with two Steinways and sometimes due to circumstances such as temperature and humidity, neither of them met with his approval despite the efforts of the piano tuners, as recounted by Celibidache in an interview which is available here on RU-vid. He was incredibly sensitive to sound and could hear the slightest deviation in the sound of a piano hammer striking the string which not even his piano tuner picked up. There are several anecdotes about his sensitivity to sound in documentaries about him, and he clearly was a connoiseur of the piano. So based on that and on your description of the Hautrive Bruxelles concert grand, I can believe that he found this piano intriguing and suitable for his purposes

Interesting! Thanks

Why is no piano adequate :(

RIP Burt Bacharach, student of Darius Milhaud and another great admirer of Ravel.

Herbie hancock and others have been vocal that they've taken some inspiration from Ravel.

It's harder to hear when the piano is playing those huge arpeggios!

Ravel praised jazz as an underappreciated American artform.

​@@OneirovoreAnother proof of it was how he refused to give lessons to George Gershwin because he feared he'd influence George's 'jazzy' composition style.

He is such an artisan when we talk about his orchestral works and orchestrations.

@@jacobtapianieto9655 totalmente cierto

@@jacobtapianieto9655 And you know what's funny?It sounds so lush, yet his orchestration is pure efficiency. Only well-connecting resonances are used. It is not minimalism, but it certainly is not over-the-top whipped cream, like many German composers.

What if he didn't write orchestra, then you wouldn't like him as much? He would be inferior?. And, is that your opinion,.or someone you've been told? People into classical music are so conforming, it's like people don't think for themselves.

@@alvodin6197 Literally nobody said this about Ravel in this series of comments. You interpret other people’s words at will and while you’re at it, identify people who love classical music as asses who think as a group. Maybe you should just come off your high horse.

I played gaspard years ago in music school, and it is the greatest piece written for solo piano...the structure is such an achievement and is so much fun to play. I got a real high by the end. but i agree the cadenza in the first movement of the Prokofiev 2nd is astounding.,..unplayable, it is my fav concerto but is i never played...Why is that.? too difficult? people hate it? it is so much better than prokofiev 3rd....

@@hugginduff prokofiev’s 3rd piano concerto is much more well written than the 2nd.

@@hugginduff if you could play Gaspard, arguably the hardest, then you should be able to?

@@ralphiesalagreed, and no one can play it like Martha Argerich

Many will agree with you on that praise for his unbelievable capacity of "orchestral arrangement", although some other giants could be mixed in the discussion (Bach, Berlioz, Mahler, Stravinsky, Shostakovitch, Sibelius, Britten, etc.) but you lost me completely in the "greatest Composer that ever lived..no one approaches his sense of musical beauty and sophistication"... Everything on that last statement is almost impossible to define and utterly subjective.

Everyone's favourite composer is the greatest composer that ever lived.

Superb choices. We will look at Debussy soon...

Ravel, Debussy, Chaminade, Poulenc, etc… There really isn’t in history a period of time quite like this, where a complete musical identity was summarized so utterly completely in every possible way, by citizens of really only one small country.

Well done, learning Ondine.

One of my favorite moments comes during the secondary theme. The shimmering repeated triads in the right hand begin to sparkle due to octave displacement, the left hand begins the melody: then the right hand takes over the melody while still playing those sparkles (!) so that the left hand can add a sumptuous arpeggio in the bass. It sounds like three hands playing. It was so much fun to play--and again, it fit the hand perfectly.

Totally agree. I’m a amateur and enjoy playing the beginning

I got all the way up to the climax with it's insane splits and stopped there, it's been 15 years I think I'm gonna have another go, wish me luck!

I think both are equally incredible.

Fun fact: many of his works were piano compositions first. When orchestrating, he found ideas in the colors of the harmonics and overtones of the piano.

100%

'Helpful' - understatement of the year!

@@themusicprofessor it’s also turned out to be one of my more popular works. Here’s a link if you’d like to have a listen. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xvMBVkBGHVQ.html

He's pretty special!

Thank you so much. Always exciting to hear how much people love this piece

Thank you!

Thank you so much! That sounds a fascinating journey into the music (and poems) via those recordings. I too first heard this music played by the wonderful Marta Argerich. Her performance is utterly sublime!

Thank you.

We only noticed a resemblance when we created the simplified score!

@@themusicprofessorColtrane was a huge fan of Ravel. “Impressions” is called “Impressions” because it uses part of a Ravel melody

Thanks so much for your support!

I tend to agree with you.

Ah yes - 'Jardin du Sommei d'Amour'! I too have loved that movement for years. It has a very special magic about it. I will try to do a video at some point...

Did you mean 4 or 5?

Superb. Thank you.

Thank you

Ravel can pull it off but he's not normal!

Thank you - actually I can't pretend to be a Jazz theoretician at all, but I am a big fan of cross-disciplinary perspectives. Far too many things (in music and elsewhere) are weirdly - and unhelpfully -compartmentalised!

@@themusicprofessor I agree :)

Michelangeli was an extraordinary pianist.

@@themusicprofessor This is true.

I don't know whether you have heard Ashkenazy's version, but it is dreadful. Yet he won all sorts of prizes for it and acclaim from his acolytes. I agree when I heard Michalangeli's version I was gobsmacked. Funny how some people can really make the piece make sense. I would also recommended listening to Ravel's own remastered recordings. A Camadessus, a student of Ravel is another good one. Ravel himself was rarely impressed with the way pianists played his music, even during his own time (he would be horrified now). One of his complaints was unimaginative and 'uninnovative' pedalling. His hero was Mozartl, and indeed despite its complexity, what we really have here in the Ondine is a classical first movement of a Sonata in strict sonata form. This gives a lot of clues about how this should be played. He also makes a point about returning to tempo.

@@simonsmatthew This is an interesting comment, and I'm especially intrigued to see my intuition, that Gaspard de la Nuit reads like a classical sonata to me, may in fact be correct. Thanks! :)

@@talastra The exposition states the first subject in the tonic key, there is a bridge and then the second subject is in the dominant (G-sharp).The recap contains a few surprises, but I would argue this is the fundamental construct. Overall I would argue that Gaspard de la Nuit is closer to the Mozart sonatas than the Haydn ones, particularly due to the long final movement.

The Left Hand Concerto is a piece we want to look at in future.

@@themusicprofessor the melodies and motifs in that piece is nothing short of NOSTALGIA!!

Wonderful to hear that our little film enabled you to have a Damascene experience with Ravel's music. He really is amazing!

Thank you.

The Appassionata is astounding.

mine has to be either rach 3 third movement, rach 2nd sumphony 3rd movemtn or the prokofiev concerto cadenza. But this is just incredible also!

Chopin Gm Ballade is great too! For me, Ondine is just so epic and other worldly! Brings Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings vibes to me!

Good luck!

Wonderful description

Ah someone already said it! Yes, I think the Ballade 1 coda is also almost just as intense

This is the comment I came here to make as well. Although, the cadenza is not the climax to the piece. Also, how utterly awful it is when someone doesn't seem to grasp how to play it.

@@talastra Who would you say does grasp how to play it?

@@burrenmagic Gutiérrez and Petrov both have given very credible versions. There are two issues: (1) technically playing the right notes, and (2) figuring one's way through the phrasings and gestures to make the thing not sound like a jumbled heap. I find Prokofiev's "harmonic language" often to be very austere or harsh. Like, even Ginastera in his most thoroughgoing dissonance usually manages (when played at the right tempo and with enough verve and clarity) to make a kind of familiar musical sense. Sometimes it seems with Prokofiev (and this is not a criticism) that "any note (in a chord), so long as it is not the theoretically correct one, will do." This is not an excuse for misplaying note as written, but it does mean that it is the "gesture" formed by the phrasing that is utterly essential. I mean that one cannot count on some mellifluous "melody" to carry your listener's ear through many of the cadenza's phrase. The "energy" or "sense" is entirely in the gesture itself and how those gestures pile up into one another. Again, you can really hear this being done well in Gutierrez, and it includes a real attention to performance choices to bring out such gestures. Ashkenazy sounds awful to me in this regard, whatever else he manages to do. Petrov is just so damned aggressive (and loud) that he "literally" nails it. These are the ones that stand out for now.

Merci beaucoup. C'est merveilleux à entendre.

I was also thin king of mentioning Beethoven's Op. 109 6th variation, but thank you for having already done that.

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