Jeux d’eauby Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937)

• Born in Ciboure, France. • Private; single bachelor for his entire life. • Virtuoso pianist. Attended Paris Conservatory. • Member of the “Apaches” (Hooligans): artistic

outcasts. • Influenced by Faure, Debussy, and Russian

composers. • Achieved great fame; Miroirs and Bolero. • Death from experimental brain surgery.

History of Jeux d’eau

• Premiered in 1901

• Title: “Water Games”, “Fountains”, or “Playing Water”

• Dedicated to Faure, and published with an inscription of a poem by Henri de Regnier: “The river god is laughing from the water which is tickling him.”

• Inspired by Liszt’s Les jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este

Significance of Jeux d’eau

“Inspired by the noise of water, cascades, springs, the jeux d’eau is based on two motives, in the manner of first-movement sonata form without, however, conforming to the classic tonal scheme.” (Ravel)

• Preempted Stravinsky’s use of the “Petrushka” Chord; Petrushka not composed until 1917.

• Quote from Nikolai Andreyevich, after hearing Jeux d’eau in 1907:

“As far as the principle of using dissonances with all the rights of consonances is concerned, it’s not my cup of tea, although…I should hurry right home lest I get used to it, and, God forbid, begin to like it.”

“Petrushka” Chords in Jeux d’eau

• Example 1a, Formation of a “Petrushka” Chord:

Use of “Petrushka” Chords in Jeux d’eau

• Example 1b, mm. 70 – 71*:

*Steven Baur, “Ravel’s ‘Russian‘ Period: Octatonicism in his Early Works” Journal of the American Musicological Society. Vol. 52, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 531-592

Atonality?

• Example 2*: Use of all twelve tones of the chromatic scale within three measures:

*Steven Baur, “Ravel’s ‘Russian‘ Period: Octatonicism in his Early Works” Journal of the American Musicological Society. Vol. 52,

No. 3 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 531-592

Use of Pentatonic Scale in Major Themes

• Example 3: Theme 1, m. 1 (G#, B, D#, C#, E)

Exposition, mm. 1 - 23

Theme 1, m. 1

Theme 2, m. 19

Development, mm. 24 - 61

Recapitulation: Theme 1

Theme 2