A prolific composer of symphonies, concertos, overtures, quartets, sonatas and sundry other works, Raff was a major figure in the German Romantic movement, highly regarded by his contemporaries, but forgotten since his death. Only some of his minor pieces are remembered. The most popular is the Cavatina in A-flat major, op. 85, no. 3, for violin and piano, a perennial favorite with violin students and young violinists, and no less familiar in various orchestral adaptations. A “cavatina” is a composition for an instrument with the lyric character of a song. Raff’s broad and expressive melody has an almost religious stateliness.
Another popular Raff composition in a smaller dimension is the picturesque piano piece, La Fileuse (The Spinner), op. 157, no. 2, in which the movement of the spinning wheel is graphically reproduced.
Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel was born in Ciboure, France, on March 7, 1875. After studying music with private teachers in Paris he entered the Paris Conservatory in 1889, remaining there fifteen years, and proving himself a brilliant (if at times an iconoclastic) student. While still at the Conservatory his Menuet antique for piano was published, and Les Sites auriculaires for two pianos was performed. By the time he left the Conservatory he was already a composer of considerable stature, having completed two remarkable compositions for the piano—Pavane pour une Infante défunte and Jeux d’eau, both introduced in 1902—and an unqualified masterwork, the String Quartet, first performed in 1904. The fact that a composer of such attainments had four times failed to win the Prix de Rome created such a scandal in Paris that the director of the Paris Conservatory, Théodore Dubois, was compelled to resign. But Ravel’s frustrations from failing to win the Prix de Rome did not affect the quality of his music. In the succeeding years he produced a succession of masterworks: the ballet Daphnis and Chloe, its première by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in Paris on June 8, 1912; the Spanish Rhapsody (Rapsodie espagnole) for orchestra; the suite Miroirs, for piano. During World War I, Ravel served at the front in an ambulance corps. After the war, he withdrew to his villa in Montfort l’Amaury where he lived in comparative seclusion, devoted mainly to creative work. Nevertheless, in 1928, he toured the United States, making his American debut in Boston with the Boston Symphony on January 12, 1929; Ravel died in Paris on December 28, 1937, following an unsuccessful operation on the brain.
One of the most significant of Impressionists after Debussy, Ravel was the creator of music that is highly sensitive in its moods, elegant in style, exquisite in detail, and usually endowed with the most stunning effects of instrumentation, rhythm, and harmony. Some of his best-known works derive their inspiration and material from Spanish sources. It is one of these that is probably his most popular orchestral composition, and one of the most popular of the 20th century, the Bolero. A “bolero” is a Spanish dance in ¾ time accompanied by clicking castanets. Ravel wrote his Bolero in 1928 as ballet music for Ida Rubinstein who introduced it in Paris on November 22, 1928. But Bolero has since then separated itself from the dance to become a concert hall favorite. When Toscanini directed the American première in 1929 it created a sensation, and set into motion a wave of popularity for this exciting music achieved by few contemporary works. It was performed by every major American orchestra, was heard in theaters and over radio, was reproduced simultaneously on six different recordings. It was transcribed for every possible combination of instruments (including a jazz band); the word “Bolero” was used as the title of a motion picture. Such immense appeal is not difficult to explain. The rhythmic and instrumental virtuosity of this music has an immediate kinaesthetic effect. The composition derives its immense impact from sonority and changing orchestral colors. The bolero melody has two sections, the first heard initially is the flute, then clarinet; the second is given by the bassoon, and then the clarinet. This two-part melody is repeated throughout the composition against a compelling rhythm of a side drum, all the while gradually growing in dynamics and continually changing its colors chameleon-like through varied instrumentation. A monumental climax is finally realized, as the bolero melody is proclaimed by the full orchestra.
Another highly popular Ravel composition has a far different personality—the Pavane pour une Infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Infante). Where the appeal of the Bolero is strong, direct, immediate and on the surface, that of the Pavane is subtle, elusive, sensitive. A Pavane is a stately court dance (usually in three sections and in ⁴/₄ time) popular in France. Ravel’s Pavane is an elegy for the death of a Spanish princess. Ravel wrote this composition for piano (1899) but he later transcribed it for orchestra. An American popular song was adapted from this haunting melody in 1939, entitled “The Lamp Is Low.”
Emil von Rezniček
Emil Von Rezniček was born in Vienna, Austria, on May 4, 1860, the son of a princess and an Austrian field marshal. For a time he studied law, but then devoted himself completely to music study, mainly at the Leipzig Conservatory. From 1896 to 1899 he was the conductor of several theater orchestras in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In 1902 he settled in Berlin where he founded and for several years conducted an annual series of orchestral concerts. Subsequently he was the conductor of the Warsaw Opera and from 1909 to 1911 of the Komische Oper in Berlin. He also pursued a highly successful career as teacher, principally at the Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin and from 1920 to 1926 at the Berlin High School of Music. He went into retirement in 1929, and died in Berlin on August 2, 1945.
Rezniček was the composer of several operas, five symphonies, three tone poems and various other compositions. His greatest success came with the comic opera, Donna Diana, introduced in Prague on December 16, 1894, and soon thereafter heard in forty-three European opera houses. The opera—libretto by the composer based on a Spanish comedy by Moreto y Cabana—is consistently light and frothy. Carlos is in pursuit of Princess Diana, and to effect her surrender he feigns he is madly in love with her. Princess Diana plays a game of her own. Coyly she eludes him after seeming to fall victim to his wiles. In the end they both discover they are very much in love with each other.
The opera is almost never heard any longer, but the witty overture is a favorite throughout the world; it is the only piece of music by the composer that is still often performed today. A sustained introduction leads into the jolly first theme—a fast, light little melody that sets the prevailing mood of frivolity. The heart of the overture is an expressive melody shared by basses and oboe. It grows in passion and intensity as other sections of the orchestra develop it. When this melody comes to a climax, the passionate mood is suddenly dissipated, and the frivolous first theme of the overture returns to restore a mood of reckless gaiety.