RAVEL
PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION
NOVEMBER 15 & 16, 2024 / 7:30 PM / MAURICE ABRAVANEL HALL
HANS GRAF, conductor
RAVEL
MUSSORGSKY (ARR. RAVEL)
Une barque sur l’océan (8’)
Alborada del gracioso (7’)
Mother Goose (Ma mère l’Oye) (8’)
I. Prelude
II. Dance of the Spinning Wheel
III. Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty
IV. Conversations of Beauty and the Beast
V. Tom Thumb
VI. Interlude
VII. Empress of the Pagodas
VIII. The Fairy Garden
INTERMISSION
Pictures at an Exhibition (35’) Promenade
I. Gnomus
II. The Old Castle
III. Tuileries
IV. Bydlo
V. Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells
VI. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
VII. Limoges
VIII. Catacombs- Cum mortuis in lingua mortua
IX. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba Yaga)
X. The Great Gate of Kiev
RAVEL (CLOVIS LARK, ED.)
(PIERRE BOULEZ & CLOVIS LARK, ED.)
CONDUCTOR SPONSOR
Hans Graf Conductor
Known for his wide range of repertoire and creative programming, the distinguished Austrian conductor Hans Graf is one of today’s most highly respected and experienced musicians. With Hans Graf, “a brave new world of music-making under inspired direction” (The Straits Times) began at the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, where he was unanimously appointed Chief Conductor from the 2020–21 season, and then Music Director from the 2022–23 season.
Maestro Graf also currently holds the title of Principal Guest Conductor of the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra of Denmark and formerly served as Music Director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, L’Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, The Basque National Orchestra Euskadi and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg.
Une barque sur l’ocean (8 minutes)
Alborada del gracioso (7 minutes)
Mother Goose (Ma mère l’Oye) (8 minutes)
THE COMPOSER – MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937) – For years, Ravel and Debussy were set up as rivals in Paris and, though they did not choose or nurture this “conflict”, the eventual factionalization of their artist community led to a cooling between them. It’s a shame, since the compositional similarities necessary to occasion such a competition were largely invented. Neither man liked being called an Impressionist (which they were then and still are today) and likely resented how the superficiality of the designation masked their individuality as artists. That said, it is difficult to fault their contemporaries for declaring them kindred. In addition to their comparable harmonic and formal innovations, both composers wrote prodigiously and colorfully for the piano. And both liked to convert those works into orchestral masterpieces.
THE HISTORY – Ravel wrote his piano collection Miroirs (Reflections) during 1904 and 1905. In his description of the music, he bristled (lightly) by admitting he knew the title would invite the expected tag of Impressionism. It was “a rather fleeting analogy”, he said, “since Impressionism does not seem to have any precise meaning outside the domain of painting.” Each of the five movements of Miroirs was dedicated to a member of a rebellious fraternity of young artists and performers known as les Apaches (“the houligans”), to which Ravel belonged. No. 3 of the set was Une barque sur l’ocean (A Boat on the Ocean) and it was no doubt measured against Debussy’s La mer when it was orchestrated in 1906. No. 4 of the set was Alborada del gracioso, usually translated as “morning song of the jester”. When the suite was completed in 1905, Ravel applied a personal dedication to each movement. Une barque surl’océan was dedicated to his friend Paul Sordes, the painter, and Alborada del gracioso honors his friend and supporter M.D. Calvocoressi, a music critic and early supporter of his work.
Maurice Ravel’s Ma mère l’Oye, which he wrote for the young piano students Mimi and Jean Godebski in 1908, is neither simple to play nor sounds that way. It is full
of subtlety and syncopation, with scales that were still experimental at the turn of the 20th century and harmonies tinged with the exotic. What’s more, as originally written for piano four hands, two performers must coordinate their playing with the very adult degree of precision that the famously demanding Ravel expected. It did not take long for this enchanting suite to win grownup admirers and command orchestral and solo arrangements. As originally scored, it was premiered in concert at the Société Musicale Indépendante in April 1910 by Jeanne Leleu and Geneviève Durony. That same year, Ravel arranged it for a single pianist, published the original version and created his orchestral version. The fairy tales of Ravel’s musical narratives are drawn from the traditional French Ma mère l’Oye as edited by Charles Perrault in 1697. Though these became associated with the English phrase “Mother Goose,” the literal “Mother Egg” seems more closely related to the image of the Russian nesting Matryushka dolls and the folk tales of Baba Yaga that eventually made their way throughout Europe and across the Atlantic.
THE CONNECTION – Une barque sur l’ocean appeared on the Utah Symphony Masterworks series most recently in February of 2022 with Thierry Fischer conducting. Alborada del gracioso was last performed by the Utah Symphony in March 2016 led by Matthias Pintscher. Mother Goose was presented in November 2017 under the baton of Matthias Pintscher.
Pictures at an Exhibition
Duration: 35 minutes in ten sections (played without pause).
THE
COMPOSER –
MODEST MUSSORGSKY
(18391881) – When his opera Boris Godunov premiered with great public success in 1874, Mussorgsky seemed at the pinnacle of his career. He was not, however, at his best personally. Mussorgsky was highly sensitive to the critical reactions to Boris, which ran counter to those of the audience and included some particularly harsh words from his colleague Cesar Cui and the venerable Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Terms like “immature” and “hasty” were used, alongside phrases to describe the music’s “sheer awkwardness”, “lack of polish” and “a disarray…of ideas”. Perhaps not surprisingly, signs of ill health and a return to drinking also marked the period for Mussorgsky, as the pattern of self-abuse that hastened his grim decline had well and truly begun.
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THE HISTORY – Russian architect and artist Victor Hartmann, a dear friend of Mussorgsky, had passed away in 1873 and the composer took the loss very badly. Hartmann had been only 39 when an aneurism took him and left such a void in the community that orbited around the Balakirev Circle of Russian composers. The group included Balakirev, Cui, Borodin, RimskyKorsakov and Mussorgsky and it was with the latter that Hartmann formed the deepest connection. Mussorgsky was present in 1974 when the Academy of Arts opened a commemorative exhibition of Hartmann’s work. The sober experience of moving among his friend’s images inspired what has become Mussorgsky’s most famous music. Pictures at an Exhibition began as a cycle of character pieces for piano, each movement based on various Hartmann works and occasionally separated by “Promenades” that depict Mussorgsky’s progress through the gallery. The composer’s letter to mutual friend and exhibition organizer Vladimir Stassov show the depth of feeling that informed the music. “[O]ne cannot and must not be comforted,” he wrote, “there can be and must be no consolation – it is a rotten mortality!” So, if not comfort, Mussorgsky certainly found much to fire his creative
imagination. He told Stassov that he was “ingesting” the sounds that “hung in the air” around their friend’s work and that he could “scarcely manage to scribble them down on paper” quickly enough. Sadly, Mussorgsky would not live to see his tribute presented in its now traditional orchestral robes. Though the 1891 premiere featured the arrangement of Mikhail Tushmalov, it is Maurice Ravel’s utterly brilliant orchestration that we know best today. Serge Koussevitsky, arguably the 20th Century’s most influential commissioner, hired Ravel to do it in 1922 and performed his version that October with the Boston Symphony.
THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1874, Denmark granted Iceland a constitution and limited home rule, Far From the Madding Crowd was published by English novelist Thomas Hardy and cartoonist Thomas Nast first symbolized the American Republican Party with the image of an elephant.
THE CONNECTION – Pictures at an Exhibition has been performed many times by Utah Symphony, most recently in April 2017 under the direction of Andrew Litton.