Classical Music | Music for Duo

Recorded on 12/31/2014, uploaded on 05/17/2015

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

La valse, poème chorégraphique pour orchestre, arranged by Lucien Garban

Ravel’s dazzling La Valse: poème chorégraphique pour orchestre was conceived as a ballet commissioned by the founder of the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev. However, after first hearing the work in a two-piano version, Diaghilev said that it was “not a ballet. It is a portrait of ballet”—a comment that effectively ended the relationship between the two. La Valse, written shortly after World War I, has resemblances to the great Strauss waltzes, yet with a clear statement on where the new music is headed, especially with its harmonic developments. It begins with a conception-like vagueness of a waltz and ends with nearly destroying the form.

Ravel had written the piece for the full orchestra, but also arranged it for two pianos and solo piano. The piano-four-hands version on today’s program comes from Ravel’s lifelong friend Lucien Garban upon the request of the composer himself.     Anna and Dmitri Shelest

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.