Ravel: Orchestral Works, Vol. 4

Featuring

Stéphane Denève
Stéphanie d'Oustrac
Alexandre Duhamel
Jean-Paul Fouchécourt
Yann Beuron
Paul Gay

WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
Maurice Ravel

Did you know?

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Composition History

Ravel's opera plan for Shéhérazade, based on the Tales of the Arabian Nights, was dropped after its overture failed with the audience.

Composition History

The premiere of L'heure espagnole was delayed until 1911 due to reservations about the libertine nature of its material.

Compositional Technique

In L'heure espagnole, Ravel used special instruments like bells, chimes, cuckoo whistle, and celesta to render the sounds of a clockmaker's shop.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Maurice Ravel, who spent most of his life in Paris, had a predilection for foreign fantasy worlds and exotic masquerades, as evidenced in many of his orchestral works.

Composition History

Ravel was interested in L'heure espagnole as a libretto because its exaggerated characters and mix of vernacular and absurd lyricism suited his humor.

Composer Biography

Stéphanie d'Oustrac, the mezzo-soprano on this album, is the great-niece of French composers Francis Poulenc and Jacques La Presle.

Compositional Technique

For Ravel, setting a poem to music meant transforming it into an expressive recitative, enhancing the language to the level of song without subjugating the words.