Fascinating Rhythms Preview | Ravel Jeu d'eau
- Leah Froyd
- 11 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Hello Insight fam and welcome back to Insight’s season! We are so happy to be back with our next season of concerts, and pleased to introduce you to the great composers in this season.
Guided Listening | Jeu d'eau
At the head of this concert is none other than one of my favorite composers, Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). After his admittance into the Paris Conservatoire at age 14, he composed Pavane for a Dead Princess, and his String Quartet in F major. Following his studies, he lived in solitude in a country retreat on the outskirts of Paris. He served in WWI as an ambulance driver. Although he never married, he maintained a very tight knit “society” of close friends.
He composed during the impressionist period alongside other tremendously creative composers like Debussy and Satie– you can read more about this style and Debussy here.
The most striking thing about Ravel’s compositions that set him apart from his cohorts are the magical textures he is able to achieve not only in his orchestral music, but also in his solo music. His great imagination led him to exploring very unique musical ideas and inventions to provoke previously unheard effects.
In his piece Jeux d’eau, Games of Water, you can hear the meticulous craft in which Ravel creates a delicate and expressive character to represent water. To me, the use of the upper register illustrates the way the light shimmers when it catches the light– in addition, the use of 32nd notes in the last beat give it an additional playful gesture.
Likewise, when the motif breaks the pattern by further accelerating the notes in the right hand, it illustrates the water spilling over, or suddenly rushing onto the beach or inside a boat.
In the next section, the right hand is transformed completely into the gestures of the water while the left hand introduces the next melody. Listen for the way the fluid gestures in the right hand are juxtaposed with the more straightforward line:
This new melodic line is developed for some time, climbing up the piano’s register and building tension until it finally crashes down (like a wave). This push and pull occurs a couple times until the final climax, marked with large dynamic swell and glissando. The musical term, glissando instructs the player to prioritize the speed of the notes, creating a very swift gesture plunging back to the bottom of the piano’s register.
At the bottom, we are met with the second motif, but this time it’s a bit different– apart from being lower in pitch, it’s cut into a shorter segment as the left hand undulates underneath.
The process of establishing this motif and “bubbling” upwards is repeated a few times until we transition back to the opening motif, however the piece has not fully resolved. Notice how there is a pedal in the left hand rather than the original, fluid motion.
The final resolution doesn’t occur until a pause (fermata) followed by the listener being pulled back and the monotonous movement of the right hand is restored. This ending always felt very cinematic to me, like we are zooming out to view the vastness of the ocean.
For Further Listening...
We mentioned Debussy as Ravel’s cohort in the impressionist musical movement. This orchestral staple, La Mer captures the way Debussy illustrated a similar idea of water and more specifically the sea. Listen to this and compare and contrast the ideas Ravel and Debussy had, and notice the way Debussy orchestrated specific ideas in different instruments vs. the way Ravel utilized just the piano to achieve similar (and different) musical effects.
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