Classical Music | Music for Viola

Recorded on 11/02/2010, uploaded on 11/02/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes
Maurice Ravel wrote the Pavane for solo piano in 1899, while a composition student of Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatory.  It was an enormous success, so Ravel also orchestrated the piece in 1910.   Ravel dedicated the Pavane to his patron, the Princesse de Polignac, yet he also clarified that the piece is not meant to pay tribute to any particular princess.   In view of the prevailing tendency to interpret the piece too slowly for the composer's taste, Ravel felt obliged to remark on one occasion that this is a Pavane for a Dead Princess, and not a Dead Pavane for a Princess.  The transcription on today's program is by Vadim Borisovsky.       Viacheslav Dinerchtein

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.