Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937), Rapsodie espagnole (1907)

Performed by Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa conductor

00:00 - No. 1 Prélude à la nuit. Très modéré
03:57 - No. 2 Malagueña. Assez vif
06:02 - No. 3 Habanera. Assez lent et d'un rythme las
08:35 - No. 4 Feria. Assez animé

The Rapsodie espagnole was completed in 1908, after a two-piano version of the work the previous October. It consists of four movements, the evocative Prélude à la nuit, Malagueña, Habanera, and Feria. The Habenera had originally been written in 1895 as a work for two pianos. With Entre cloches, written two years later, it formed the Sites auriculaires, first imperfectly performed in 1898 by Ricardo Viñes and Marthe Dron on a newly devised instrument, a piano with two keyboards, at a Société nationale de musique concert, to conservative disapproval. Debussy showed interest and borrowed the score of Habanera and it has been widely supposed that the piece gave rise to Debussy's own Soirée dans Grenade a few years later. Rapsodie espagnole was Ravel's first major orchestral work, a demonstration of his originality and of his gifts as an orchestrator. The music moves from the stillness of night, with its four-note descending motif, to be heard again in the second and fourth movement, to two characteristic Spanish dances and a final celebratory Spanish fiesta.

(Naxos)

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