None of the 20th century composers understands the orchestra better than Ravel as may be seen in his ballet Daphnis and Chloe, Rhapsodie Espagnole, his delightful Mother Goose and La Valse. His short opera, L’heure espagnole is full of charming music and splendid workmanship; his quartet written in 1902–3 is one of the finest examples of 20th century chamber music. For piano he has added a rich contribution in the Sonatina, Pavane for a Dead Child, Valses nobles et sentimentales, Les Miroirs (Looking Glasses), Gaspard de la Nuit, Le Tombeau de Couperin (The Tomb of Couperin), and his songs are very beautiful, including Histoires Naturelles (Natural History) and the Greek and Hebrew folk songs.
Ravel’s latest work is a revelation of all his abilities, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (The Child’s Sorceries), a ballet in early form with modern music. It is a fantasy tale about a little boy, who will not do his lessons and in a fury injures a squirrel; the chairs, grandfather’s clock, frogs, fairies, sprites, squirrels, arithmetic dwarfs from the book he has destroyed, and tea-pots rebel and talk “at him,” until he binds up the wound of the squirrel. Into this, Ravel puts humor and even sentiment; he makes some of the chairs dance a minuet, other characters, a fox trot, and includes many old and new dances. He shows his magic handling of the orchestra and with extreme cleverness he even has the chair and the shepherdess sing a song in canon form and at the end all join in singing a fugue of “heavenly beauty.”
A follower of Ravel is Maurice Delage, who has written some very interesting songs and an orchestral work in which he is modern enough to imitate the sounds of an iron foundry!
An enthusiastic follower and friend of Ravel, is Roland Manuel, critic, writer and composer. He has never written what is called ultra (very) modern music, but everything he does, songs, chamber music, operetta, or ballet is marked with good taste, refinement and fine musicianship.
Other Frenchmen who have added to the 20th century style are Paul Dukas (1865), whose opera based on Maeterlinck’s Ariane et Barbe Bleue (Ariadne and Blue Beard) is second only to Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande; Vincent d’Indy (1851); Déodat de Sévérac (1873–1921), a writer of charming piano music whose impressionism reflects his love of Nature; Albert Roussel (1869), a pupil of the Schola Cantorum, whose Symphony and opera Padmavati show splendid talent; Florent Schmitt (1870) whose orchestral works and piano quintet are important; André Caplet (1880–1925), Charles Koechlin (1867), and Erik Satie (1869–1925).
Erik Satie—Cartoonist
Erik Satie is a riddle! Many are the heated discussions he has caused. His influence has been through what he has said, not what he has done. He was a caricaturist rather than a great composer, giving amusing titles to frivolous little pieces that show humor, in which one never knows whether he was laughing at or with the world. He loved short disconnected pieces and did much to make the young composer break away from long symphonic forms. He was a friend of Debussy, godfather to the Group of Six, and later to four “youngsters” who call themselves the “School of Arcueil” where Satie lived. His name should have been Satyr for with his pointed ears, eyebrows, and beard, he looked the part! Among his compositions are the ballets, Parades and Relache, and a dramatic aria with orchestra, Socrates.
The School of Arcueil, which has not yet proven its value is composed of Sauguet, Maxime Jacob, Desormières and Clicquet-Pleyel, who take pleasure in American jazz effects and have tried amusing experiments.
The Group of Six
The World War reacted directly and indirectly upon a group of composers in France. Daring and brutality are the keynote of almost all the works of the years from 1914 to the present day. Debussy and Ravel with their poetic imagery did not express the feelings of the younger men, so they were pitilessly brushed aside by Les Jeunes (The Young) who overthrew the accepted forms for their own experiments.