this movement suffers all kind of abuse by being included in compilations of adagios and being played just as fully and lushly as possible. not that there's not a place for that in this gorgeous four minutes, but i think most will agree that the most magical are the pianissimo first twenty bars (and the moment at which the climax you want at 1:27 - a lot more yearning in the orchestral version - gets cut off by another pianissimo).
i don't think this movement requires any imagery besides that which he gives you in the title. it's such a rich image - a nighttime garden, which begins to glow softly with fairy light. he holds off the full glow for so long that by the time 2:49 comes you practically want to cry when you see that your hopes are actually going to be realized.
of course, those who have heard the orchestral version will yearn for the power and dynamic of the full orchestra. but i think there is something endearingly chordal about this piano version.
"When I think of your good heart, you do not seem so ugly." "Oh, I should say so! I have a good heart, but I am a monster." "There are many men who are more monstrous than you." "If I were witty I would pay you a great compliment to thank you, but I am only a beast."
"Beauty, would you like to be my wife?" "No, Beast!"
"I die happy because I have the pleasure of seeing you once again." "No, my dear Beast, you shall not die. You shall live to become my husband." ... The Beast had disappeared, and she beheld at her feet a prince more handsom than Amor, who was thanking her for having lifted his spell.
this is the movement that taps into a story we all know. from ravel's description we can easily match up which parts of this conversation map to his quotes and characters. the lovely introductory melody represents the belle, and at 1:16 the low chromatic melody represents the beast (this is a contrabassoon in the orchestral version). clearly the first climax right after this around 2:00 is meant to be the first rejection.
i think in the original fairy tale the beast begins to die here of heartbreak (not like in disney with the angry mob and battering ram). i'm not sure i agree with the cartoon's interpretation, given the content association of the first climax (which is more or less the same, but less intense). i think that perhaps the second climax at 2:50 is meant to be when beauty realizes the beast is dying - and then realizes her affection for him.
the transformative moment after that is given to a violin solo with these really difficult harmonics, in the orchestral version. a cello enters afterwards with a much higher version of the beast theme - perhaps meant to be the beast after his transformation.
"She undressed and got into the bath. Immediately the toy mandarins and mandarinesses began to sing and to play instruments. Some had theorbos made from walnut shells; some had viols made from almond shells; for the instruments had to be of a size appropriate to their own."
this is probably my favorite animation of the set.
the movement is formally complete, more than the two vignettes we just heard. it has a twinkling exposition full of little sixteenth note licks, and a middle section with a more sinuous melody (in the orchestral version played by a clarinet and accompanied by gong strikes). the recap is fantastic and ends the movement with a flash of brilliance.
i think this movement benefits the most from orchestration. though the piano can attain some of that spark and cleanliness, nothing can substitute for the color and pizzazz added by the celeste, percussion, string pizz and lush chords, and wind solos. i love ravel's use of the upper range here, clearly used to effect the miniature instruments. many oriental-affecting classical pieces have the tendency to saturate with pentatonic scale. ravel does this here, but has some interesting twists: listen at 1:59. gorgeous
in english: Tom Thumb, a little character in english folklore who gets in all sorts of trouble because of his size, which is about that of a thumb. (cool trivia: wiki says that this little fairy tale was the very first to be printed in english.) in this movement, he has left a trail of bread crumbs behind him so as not to get lost...
"He believed he'd easily find his way because of the bread that he'd strewn all along his path; but he was very surprised to find not a single crumb: the birds had come and eaten everything."
the music in this movement is easily evocative of directionless meandering owing to its inconsistent meter (6/4, 5/4, 4/4, 3/4 all included), and of a sort of miniature scale world owing to its scant orchestration. the tempo in this version is a bit brisker than i would like, but it does give that steady flow that's the most important thing in this movement.
at 1:59 you can hear the bird calls. the rising high notes are one, and the "cuckoo" afterwards is another. presumably these are the ones who have eaten his bread crumbs.
my favorite moment is the very last chord... the key is nebulous (probably c minor given the key signature, but the harmonies take it in a sort of whole-tone direction), but all of a sudden we end on a c major chord.
the french is too long to put in the title and fairly useless for those who read this anyway.
i'm trying to make a comeback on this blog after viewing the stats feature and seeing that sometimes folks from random other places (switzerland? australia, apparently??) land here. sorry for the leave.
true to form, ravel put this piece in three different forms and it's hard to find a recording of the version i know best, the "suite" of five orchestral pieces. i think it's best known in its original piano duo form, a fairly easy little set which he composed for two children of close friends of his (his second family, of sorts, after his father's death). the piano duo version was composed in 1910, and the year after he orchestrated it. in 1912 he added two new movements to the orchestral version, and this is usually the version that orchestras play and record today. anyway, today i cover the suite in its original form, which is obviously not quite as colorful as the orchestral format but lovely in its simplicity.
i could put a more illustrious recording up, but part of me has always been enamored of fantasia enough to have a long-held dream of continuing its vision of pairing animation with classical music. i don't think i would usually want to promote a single set of images over another, but ravel was pretty obvious when he named these pieces and inserted blurbs before every one that he wanted kids to be able to access these pieces through stories. (actually, he fails to insert blurbs before the first and last pieces. but the first one is so short and the last one so colorful that the music serves fine in these cases.) so this little animation exercise won me over immediately, and the playing is beautiful and simple.
the pavane of the sleeping beauty is a scant 20 bars in a minor, clocking in at less than two minutes. in the orchestral version the lines are carried by soft solo winds, and tiptoing pizz in the strings. the meter and form don't really follow the "pavane" technically, but there are two adjectives which typically get paired when talking about pavanes: slow and stately, which both describe this movement nicely.
