The Waltz

the Waltz is a choreographic poem for Orchestre of Maurice Ravel, composed between 1919 and 1920 and dedicated to the friend of the type-setter Misia Sert, born Godebska.

Work was publicly created the December 12th 1920 by the Concerts Lamoureux directed by Camille Chevillard.

Execution time : approximately 13 minutes.

History of work

In agreement with Serge de Diaghilev, Ravel planned as of 1906 to compose for the ballet a Apothéose of the waltz in homage to Johann Strauss, when the First World War obliged it to give its projects. The experiment of the war, lived like a destruction of civilization, changed indeed gives it. The romantic and sumptuous image of the court Viennese of the XIXe century, illustrated so well by the Waltz of Strauss, the image of a declining world always threatened by cruelty succeeded.

For this reason the work of Ravel exceeds its initial ambitions by far. The musician composed according to his own expression a “swirl fantastic and fatal” , sumptuous evocation of the size, decline then of the destruction of Western civilization.

Composed with eagerness, work was created in the first hearing in front of Diaghilev by Ravel in April 1920, in a version transcribed for piano. It was the occasion of a final estrangement between the two men, Diaghilev refusing to represent the Waltz with the Russian Ballets: “Ravel, it is a masterpiece, but it is not a ballet. It is the painting of a ballet” . For the anecdote, Stravinski, present also this day, reacts to this refusal by a calculated silence. Ravel did not forgive him, and the relations between the two friends were limited, consequently, with most strict professionalism.

Media

Random links: