When I was a teenager, I was taken over by the spirit of Ravel. It was like  'I must have been Ravel in my former life!'  'What a silly, you said you had a striking resemblance to Durer, was that cheating?' my friend may say. German painter and craft meister Albrecht Durer left his wife and ran away to Italy when plague was epidemic. So I said that a guy like that coward  must have been a past-life of mine. It may be troublesome for the maestro.  To toy with the idea of past life is inadvisable. But this time I will try to write a little about a person whom I felt a sense of affinity.

    Maurice Ravel is a French Basque composer born in 1875 and he and Debussy, also an impressionist composer, were always mistaken for twins. These two guys might have been in love with each other, I 'll try to see through their souls... no, it's different. But when I imagine his life, I only read his biography, I feel a little sad. Do you know his last days? A taxi he rode had an accident and after then, he began to experience aphasia-like symptoms (1) and his thoughts and feelings were clear, but he couldn't express anything. That was a brain disorder so he couldn't even write. Trapping ourselves in the cage of physical body is our everyday behavior but moreover, keeping them away from other people; what is the purpose of this lesson?
    In his late years, Ravel couldn't write down the musical ideas he heard in his mind and he felt emptiness for everything, and was frequently absent-minded. One day, a friend of his asked him 'What are you doing?' when he sat in an armchair on the balcony, he replied 'I'm waiting.' A lot of helping hands of friendship to comfort the wounds extended to a man who had hidden his mind discreetly. Various attempts were made. Some invited him to their vacation houses, some tried to make him write characters and others to play chords on the piano. There was no end to the number of visitors who
comforted him. Jacques de Sogepp, a friend of Ravel's, visited Ravel's house every evening whether 'it was rainy or windy, or even snowy'. When he rang on the doorbell, Ravel came rushing over to the gate and struggled to open the latch with his disabled hands, then made it successfully, Jacques reported that great affection welled out from his eyes. (2)

             

    Ravel remained single his entire life.  Although musicians are often seen as gay, I think a gay person is an ordinary man and he was not. (3)   The people around him said that Ravel stayed out late at night because he suffered from severe insomnia. He wanted to stay together with friends at midnight and sometimes was turned down, he went home with a sad look. This is very like how Glenn Gould making phone calls late at night. (4) Although surrounded by a lot of admirers, these people are caught in their loneliness which is made by themselves. Made by themselves? How? There was a drawing room at his Montfort-l'Amaury home which was filled with a pile of fake goods. Various items from small Japanese antiques to Renoir paintings, they are like Chinese Rolex watches of today. And if someone complimented one of them, Ravel would be delighted 'n' go,
 'However, this is actually an imitation.'
    In addition, it is said that he always wore suits and put on a tie which coordinated well with a decorative silk handkerchief in the chest pocket when he was at home alone because he just hated sloppy appearances, and sat at a table that pushed against a wall, leaned very close to the wall, he had a meal. Always wearing trendy clothes, he never expressed his own feelings. Also he was a master of cynical remarks and his sayings are introduced everywhere, I omit details this time, they were subtle expressions which were very gentlemanly, careful wording, hard to distinguish caring for others from blame, and witty and at the same time obstinately, he turned away. A lot of people were not able to figure out what he meant and couldn't come close to. Helene Jourdan-Morhange who loved Ravel might have said those attitudes were reflections of Ravel's modesty and an evidence of his tenderness, she looked at the cynic's spiritual radiance as it was but on the contrary, almost all people around him might have had different opinions. I think Ravel had something which prevented opening the doors of his mind.

    Finding common denominators, we can say that it is fear. In fact, he had a notion that entailed a feeling of being unacceptable for some reason. What does anything in paticular have to do with it? Sometimes it is very difficult for us to detect that complex. In principle we can unlock the fear but it seems to be locked multiple times because we put it into our useful lidded box named unconsciousness. We ourselves put into it, nobody can open the lid. He himself forgot it, nobody can recall it. Ravel's circumstances just break my heart as though they were my problem.
    
    That sense of isolation is heard in his melody. There are a number of characteristics that are typical of Ravel in his music. If I tried to give a technical explanation of one of them, then the 'watchmaker' composer acquired that highly precise technique, I wouldn't be able to do that without the equivalent knowledge of composers'. But the expressoion of his mind, we can see easily as it is. Discontinuation and distraction of passion, derisive phrases for whom one is enchanted by his melody, and intentional deviation from expected development, these cynical aspects which correspond to his life attitude could be identified if we had a little knowledge of musical structure. This phase of expression is much more interesting if we thought the purpose of irony is in the psychological meaning. Ravel's situation is like one lie leads to another and yet another, and there is complicate screening structure can be observed behind the scenes. But now, I'd like to say just about his feeling of loneliness which in part associated with it.

     

    To simplify the story, I'll focus exclusively on two points. In two psychological traits of Ravel's music, especially attractive one of the two is extremely beautiful, impressively quiet melody. It's like looking out of the window at bright scenery of May from a dark room, or like viewing a distant city from the top of a hill, which is beautiful but is not satisfied. It is a song of a person who is longing and isn't 'living here', placing the person's wish to be understood and loved beyond the reach of distant future. And even if it is from ego's fault, what a enchanted song it is!
    In the second movement of the Concerto for Piano in G major, the left hand accompaniment of the piano changes to the misty tremolo, then a suddenly appeared flute draws wind which colored by hope and resignation, and hand it over to an oboe, then, to a clarinet, what a heart-wrenching beauty. ”Written every two-bars at a time, almost die with great effort?”  That might be about your regrettable brain disorder, but I'm talking about your musical piece itself, I want to say to him. The honest recapitulation which makes an appearance in the droll 'Forlane', and the 'Menuet' which like clear water, can we resist the beauty?    
           
    Ravel was able to confess his honest feeling only in his music. Debussy also wrote some beautiful lyrical melodies like 'Clair de lune', 'Petite suite pour orchestre' or 'Reverie'. But they are a little bit different to the twin brother's manner in the color. I can't say like the philosopher Vladimir Jankelevitch's saying 'the different inclination between major seventh versus parallel seventh, parallel ninth, and augmented fifth' but in the lyrical melodies, Ravel
appealed with a sense of longing; 'help me to unravel my tangled thread'. Be careful not to be deceived by his everyday language that he pretends as if nothing serious in it. Like a one-way mirror, we can see the true picture from the music side, or, did he think he could hide it successfully?  Even the most secretive person locates with a distress signal somewhere.    

    There are two psychological traits of Ravel's music, I said before, and this is one of the two. But these apparent two sides are connected to one inside.  One other characteristic of Ravel's inner voice is, I think, as they say, 'catastrophe'.  It is an emotional outburst like a fit of rage. 'Catastrophe' is, I looked it up in the dictionary, 'a sudden usually destructive change', or 'the final event of the dramatic action of a tragedy'. Jankelevitch called this 'rage of wolf' and the term became well known. That is a typical French intellectual like dense book (5) using a lot of abstract paraphrases like a Godard film's
prologue, the catastrophe is, according to this book, 'showing up an obviously distinct depths of humorist's wildness' and 'sudden violence, a rage which appeared abruptly like a a wolf'.

    Famous orchestral piece Bolero is well known as this:  same melody is handed over to various instruments and it lasts on and on, then, at last after modulated and changed to descending melody, it collapses. Listening this breakup or endgame madness, more than a few people might be brought under the spell of Ravel's music. It was with me. That is the Ravel's catastrophe. What does this blowup mean? Many similar pieces are found. For example, the opposite opinions compared with 'La Valse' might heard though, even in the piano piece 'Valses nobles et sentimentales' (1911), I think there is a germination of the catastrophe in it.
   
    Orchestral piece 'La Valse' (The Waltz), often compared with Bolero, depicts a glamorous ball court in an Emperor's palace around 1855. 'I imagined this piece something like an ending of a Viennese Waltz. That is blending in with an impression of unreal and fatal, swirling stream of water in my mind', Ravel himself said.  Dressed people are dancing smugly with grace at first, and gradually the waltz rhythm swells, spinning again and again excitement grows, at the end, entailed brass roar, downright destructive end comes.

   

    Also in the 'Sonata for violin and piano', we can hear the same destruction sound. This piece has a deliberate agenda of breaking the basic premise of harmony between two instruments which a violin sonata need to have. 'Though they (violin and piano) are disharmonious instruments each other, in this piece, they don't even put in balance let alone emphasize the incompatibility' the composer himself said. This can be understood as the Ravel's habitual cynicism but actually, especially the beginning of the third movement, the piano and the violin don't form a chord, rather, they emulate and chasing each other and wouldn't mingle. I don't think I only vaguely remember, a music critic Hidekazu Yoshida once wrote somewhere that 'I like Faure but Ravel, I don't like these impersonal characteristics.' I believe he never compliment to an unacceptable performance in order to make money so he must have really felt unpleasantness to this piece. Although everyone has his own taste, I thought, at that time, this music critic didn't want to understand Ravel's heart, then somehow felt myself deserted. But we can't feel any aversion to the things which are not in ourselves. Because Mr. Yoshida was sensitive enough, he might be unexpectedly sensed too much about Ravel's predicament. The impersonal, cynical attitude was covering up his pain. And confronting to this kind of problem needs much mental stability. If come closer to it carelessly, we will hurt ourselves. Now also I sometimes feel pain listening to Ravel's music same as Mr. Yoshida might have felt at that time.

    Then, the violin sonata increasingly becomes tense with a mask on, making busy sound like a hum of bees, and the boosted up sparkling emotion ruptures, all the same the end comes. Might I also add the finale of the 'Concerto for the Left Hand' has quite the same characteristic of the catastrophe.
              
    Rage of wolf, Ravel like catastrophe, the names are vary. Mad excitement and destruction after that----this must be a trajectory of a impulse.  This is a defense mechanism which is an unconscious try to resolve tension, aims not to go mad by letting beforehand the pressure out. And catastrophe is at the same time catharsis. Catharsis is, I heard Aristotle defined that, purification of emotion through tragedy. Ravel's this catatonic spasm is connected to the beautiful lonely melody at the root. The fear and sorrow sometimes changed their form to anger and it accumulated in his unconsciousness, waited the chance of liberation by becoming a wolf.

    Explosion of impulse and release of tension, this idea is not my invention. But if we judge someone, we will be judged.  That means, I believe, we will live the same standard of the reality which the person we judged is living. Implying the connection between the attitude of hiding own feelings extremely at the noon of Ravel's life and agony of his late years, I would be judging. Though people who are fascinated to Ravel's music might not represent the majority of classical music fans, there are a lot of Ravel freaks. I am one of them and want to carry forward my problem that is awoken by his music to the next step. But I know the nonsense of this kind of reductions from music to psychological analyses.  Expressing one's status as it is, that is art. So the wounded status is a part of human nature, then, can we allow ourselves to affirm the wounded status to be as it is? Yes, I think we can. That is the splendid thing of music. The expression of suffering itself can be a tool of liberation. Of course sometimes it is too hard to relive the composer's predicament when we get into his music. Not to do so, then place a little distance to it and allow the presence of fear of ourselves, liberation would come. Let's enjoy the complex Ravel's music.

 
Piano pieces of Ravel
    'Le tombeau de Couperin': 'Le tombeau' means 'the grave', and the meaning of the French expression begins with this word is a literature which is dedicated to the glory of a great individual. So this title stands for 'In Praise of the Late Couperin'. When the First World War broke out, Ravel voluntarily enlisted in spite of his friends strongly persuaded that 'artists can service to their nation only by making use of their talent'. But Interestingly, flying corps denied him and after arrived in a post of a truck driver, he lost his health twice and eventually didn't go to the front, then before long he was dismissed from the army. After that, Ravel composed this piece for the memory of the brothers in arms who died in the battle. Each movement is respectively dedicated to one fellow soldier. But he composed this piece while he felt a great loss of his mother's death, some people say that the dedication to the 'fellow soldiers' must have been a disguise because he was trying to escape from the pain at that time. Whatever the intention was, we can listen some Ravel's beautiful melodies filled with loneliness in this suite.

    Not only the piece 'Le tombeau de Couperin', Ravel's piano pieces are attractive among his works. Menuet, the second movement of 'Sonatine', is a piece which, I think, must not be played too slowly, I listened it the other day when I went to a restaurant to have a dinner. A pianist were playing this small piece, probably a student of a local college of music who employed for a part time job, I enjoyed her well controlled beautiful performance together with a tune of a Kazumasa Oda's (Japanese pops). 'Pavane pour une infante defunte' is also a beautiful melody which is playing here and there as  a background music.


   
      Maurice Ravel   L'oevre de piano   Jacques Rouvier ♥♥

   
      Ravel Complete Works for Solo Piano   Paul Crossley ♥♥