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Introduction and Allegro (Ravel)

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Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet (French: Introduction et allegro pour harpe, flûte, clarinette et quatuor) is a chamber work by Maurice Ravel. It is a short piece, typically lasting between ten and eleven minutes in performance. It was commissioned in 1905 by the Érard harp manufacturers to showcase their instruments, and has been described as a miniature harp concerto. The premiere was in Paris on 22 February 1907.

The work has been arranged for piano and for large orchestral forces but the version for seven instruments is usually performed, and has been recorded many times. Harpists who have featured in recordings include Lily Laskine, Nicanor Zabaleta, Osian Ellis, Markus Klinko, Lavinia Meijer and Marie-Pierre Langlamet.

Background

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To showcase its new chromatic harp, the Pleyel company commissioned Claude Debussy in 1904 to write his Danses sacrée et profane for harp and orchestra.[1] The rival Érard company responded by commissioning Maurice Ravel to write a piece to display the expressive range of its double-action pedal harp.[2][n 1]

Ravel completed his Introduction and Allegro for a septet of harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet in June 1905, dedicating it to Albert Blondel, director of Maison Érard.[2] For Ravel, composition was generally slow and painstaking,[5] but he wrote the Introduction and Allegro at what for him was breakneck speed, to complete it before embarking on a boating holiday with friends. He wrote at the time:

I was terribly busy during the few days which preceded my departure, because of a piece for the harp commissioned by the Érard Company. A week of frantic work and 3 sleepless nights enabled me to finish it, for better or worse. Right now, I am relaxing on a marvellous trip.[2]

Premiere and early performances

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The premiere was given on 22 February 1907 at an all-Ravel concert presented by the Cercle Musical at the Hôtel de la Société française de photographie in Paris.[n 2] The players were Micheline Kahn (harp), Philippe Gaubert (flute), Ernest Pichard (clarinet), and the Quartet Firmin Touche; the performance was conducted by Charles Domergue.[7][8]

The British premiere was on 4 September 1907 at a Henry Wood Promenade concert, with Alfred Kastner as harp soloist.[9] Ravel later conducted the work in Britain, first at the Bechstein Hall, London, in December 1913, with Gwendolen Mason as harpist,[10] and in concerts of his works at both the Aeolian Hall, London and the town hall, Oxford in October 1928.[11]

The American premiere was at Aeolian Hall in New York on 3 December 1916 in a concert featuring the harpist Carlos Salzedo, who gave the American premiere of Debussy's Danses sacrée et profane in the same programme.[12] At the first performance in Australia, at the Conservatorium Hall, Sydney, in November 1917, the piece was so enthusiastically received that it had to be immediately repeated.[13]

Music

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Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet
Performed by the United States Marine Band in 2022
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The full title of the work in the published score gives primacy to the harp: "Introduction et Allegro pour Harpe avec accompagnement de Quatuor à Cordes, Flûte et Clarinette".[14] Although some commentators have emphasised the chamber nature of the piece, and challenged the view of it as a concertante work,[15] the Ravel scholar Arbie Orenstein writes, "Ravel apparently wished to stress the privileged position of the harp, and the composition should thus be considered a miniature harp concerto rather than a septet".[16]

Structure

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musical score with lines for flute, clarinet, harp and string quartet
Opening bars of the Introduction

The work is in G-flat major.[17] It typically plays for between ten and eleven minutes.[n 3] The opening is marked Très lent and expressif, the metronome mark is ♩ =40, and the time is 4
4.[17] The 26-bar introduction presents three themes – the first two for woodwinds and the third for cello – which reappear in the allegro. The piece opens with a pianissimo duet for the flute and clarinet. The strings enter in the third bar, pianissimo, and the harp enters in the fourth with a wide-ranging arpeggio.[18]

The cello introduces a broad melody against the shimmering pianissimo of the violins, flute, and clarinet. After ten bars the time changes to 3
4 and the marking to moins lent.[19] The movement becomes faster and louder, and subsides to pianissimo again, bringing the introduction to its conclusion.[18]

The allegro, in sonata form, follows without a break.[20][21] It opens with a harp solo. The flute takes up the melody, to the accompaniment of the violins pizzicato and the other strings arco. The melody is passed from one instrument to another; the music gradually grows louder until a fortissimo climax is reached.[22] The themes are further developed or compressed, with a cadenza for the harp,[23] which precedes the recapitulation.[21]

The harp returns to the first theme of the allegro section, with the accompaniment of trills by strings and woodwinds. The melody passes from instrument to instrument, the music becoming louder and softer again, with short interludes for the harp solo. The principal melody is given in variation form in the harp, accompanied by pizzicato strings, leading to an animated and fortissimo conclusion.[18][24]

Arrangements

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During Ravel's lifetime, his publisher, Durand et cie, issued, in addition to the original score,[25] arrangements of the Introduction and Allegro for solo piano (by J. Charlot),[26] piano four hands (by L. Roques),[27] two pianos (by the composer),[28] and harp and piano (by the composer).[29] Ravel was not averse to having the piece played by larger ensembles than a septet. in a letter to Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht in February 1911 he wrote:

It is not, properly speaking, a piece for orchestra. There are 7 instruments in all. But it could be arranged: the string quartet could be doubled, or even tripled. And, with the exception of several solos, it would sound even better than the original.[30]

Several recordings of the work have the string parts expanded from quartet to full string orchestra.[31][32]

Critical reception

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For sheer amiability and relaxed sensuousness, no work by Ravel surpasses his Introduction et allegro.

Mark de Voto,
The Cambridge Companion to Ravel, 2011 [33]

Comparing Debussy's 1904 Danses sacrée et profane with Ravel's piece commissioned in response, the critic Mark de Voto comments that the former are "restrained and even austere, but no less sensuous in their subtlety, without so much as a hint of the harp’s most characteristic gesture, the glissando", whereas Ravel's is "a brilliant virtuoso piece" with "a lushness of colour" and "a remarkably full instrumental sound".[34]

In a 2011 study Roger Nichols comments that although Ravel had described the piece as finished "for better or for worse", the musical public "has long decided that it was 'for better'".[35] In Nichols's view the work, from an aesthetic point of view, is a minor one but inhabits an "original and beautiful sound-world" and technically represents an advance on the String Quartet premiered the year before the composition of the Introduction and Allegro.[36]

In his 2012 Ravel the Decadent, Michael Puri interprets the Introduction and Allegro as "a scene of reanimation"[37] – in the words of another analyst, Jessie Fillerup, "a dawn that heralds renewal while pointing toward the inevitable dusk".[38] Puri considers the music to be the closest relation in Ravel's works to the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, commissioned in 1909.[39]

Recordings

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The composer directed an early recording of the work in London in 1923, with an ensemble comprising Gwendolen Mason, harp; Robert Murchie, flute; Haydn Draper, clarinet; and a string quartet led by George Woodhouse.[40] The commentator Robert Philip comments that the recording lasts nine and a half minutes, substantially less than most later recordings, and "the Allegro sounds very fast to modern listeners (by comparison, a 1938 recording by Lily Laskine and the Calvet Quartet, for example, lasts just under eleven minutes)".[n 4]

Among the many subsequent recordings are:

Year Harp Flute Clarinet Strings Conductor Reference
1928 John Cockerill Robert Murcie Charles Draper Virtuoso Quartet[n 5] [40]
1931 Denise Herbrecht

unnamed ensemble

 Piero Coppola [42]
1938 Lily Laskine Marcel Moyse Ulysse Delécluse Quatuor Calvet [43]
1952 Phia Berghout

Amsterdam Chamber Music Society

 [44]
1955 Ann Mason Stockton Arthur Cleghorn Mitchell Lurie Hollywood String Quartet [45]
1955 Lily Laskine Jean-Pierre Rampal Ulysse Delécluse Pascal String Quartet [46]
1958 Nicanor Zabaleta

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

 Ferenc Fricsay [47]
1962 Osian Ellis Richard Adeney Gervase de Peyer Melos Ensemble string quartet[n 6] [31]
1965 Nicanor Zabaleta Christian Lardé Guy Deplus Monique Frasca-Colombier, Marguerite Vidal, Anka Moraver, Hamisa Dor [48]
1968 Edward Druzinsky Donald Peck Clark Brody Chicago Symphony Orchestra Jean Martinon [49]
1969 Osian Ellis Richard Adeney Gervase de Peyer Melos Ensemble string quartet[n 6] [50]
1970 Marisa Robles Christopher Hyde-Smith Thea King Delmé Quartet [31]
1978 David Watkins William Bennett Tom Kelly National Philharmonic Orchestra Charles Gerhardt [31]
1983 Marisa Robles Christopher Hyde-Smith Thea King Allegri Quartet [31]
1987 Skaila Kanga

Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble

 [51]
1989 Éva Maros Zoltán Győngyőssy Béla Kovács Kodály Quartet [52]
1989 Adelheid Blovsky-Miller Wolfgang Dünschede Karl Leister Ensemble Wien-Berlin [53]
1992 Erica Goodman Suzanne Shulman Stanley McCartney Amadeus Ensemble [54]
1993 Markus Klinko Benoît Fromanger Maurice Gabai Soloists of the Orchestra de l'Opéra de Paris Bastille[n 7] [55]
1994 Heidi Lehwalder James Galway Richard Stoltzman Tokyo String Quartet [56]
1994 Ieuan Jones William Bennett James Campbell Allegri Quartet [57]
1995 Isabelle Moretti Michel Moraguès Pascal Moraguès Parisii Quartet [58]
2004 Gillian Tingay Anna Noakes Julian Farrell Fibonacci Sequence [59]
2015 Lavinia Meijer

Amsterdam Sinfonietta

 [60]
2020 Marie-Pierre Langlamet Emmanuel Pahud Wenzel Fuchs Christophe Horák, Simon Roturier, Ignacy Miecznikowski, Bruno Delepelaire [61]

Ravel's arrangement of the piece for two pianos has been recorded (1990) by Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier,[62] and (2009) Tiziana Moneta and Gabriele Rota.[63] Roques's arrangement for four hands has been recorded (2019) by Valentina Fornari and Alberto Nosè.

Notes, references and sources

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Notes

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  1. ^ According to M. D. Calvocoressi, another commission from Érard at about the same time was for Fauré's D♭ Impromptu for Harp, Op. 86;[3] in his 1991 study of Fauré, Jean-Michel Nectoux makes no mention of Érard in connection with the piece.[4]
  2. ^ The other works included the String Quartet and the Histoires naturelles.[6]
  3. ^ Representative timings from versions listed in the Recordings section: Stockton: 10m:42s; Kanga: 10:34; Klinko: 10:58; Jones: 10:20
  4. ^ The recording evidently reflects Ravel's preferred tempo rather than the constraints of the playing time of 78 rpm records: Philip notes that there was ample unused space on the discs to accommodate a slower tempo had Ravel wished it.[41]
  5. ^ Marjorie Hayward, Edwin Virgo, Raymond Jeremy, Cedric Sharpe
  6. ^ a b Emanuel Hurwitz, Ivor McMahon, Cecil Aronowitz, Terence Weil
  7. ^ Frédéric Laroque, Gérard Torgomian, Pierre Lénert, Cyril Lacrouts

References

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  1. ^ Vallas, p. 167
  2. ^ a b c Orenstein (2003), p. 68
  3. ^ Calvocoressi, M. D. "When Ravel Composed to Order", Music & Letters, vol. 22, no. 1, 1941, p. 56 (subscription required)
  4. ^ Nectoux, pp. 310 and 516
  5. ^ Sackville-West and Shawe-Taylor, p. 607
  6. ^ Orenstein (2014), p. 54
  7. ^ Orenstein (2014), p. 226
  8. ^ Vuillermoz, p. 95
  9. ^ "Prom 16, 1907", BBC. Retrieved 9 April 2022
  10. ^ "M. Ravel's Works", The Times, 18 December 1913, p. 11
  11. ^ "M. Maurice Ravel", The Times, 16 October 1928, p. 14; and 20 October 1928, p. 10
  12. ^ "Programs of the Week", The New York Times, 3 December 1916, p. 10
  13. ^ "Madrigal Society", The Daily Telegraph, 30 November 1917, p. 6
  14. ^ Ravel, title page
  15. ^ Introduction and Allegro (1907), London Sinfonietta, 2011
  16. ^ Orenstein (2014), p. 162
  17. ^ a b Ravel, p. 3
  18. ^ a b c Slonimsky, pp. 497–498
  19. ^ Ravel, p. 4
  20. ^ Ravel, pp. 7–8
  21. ^ a b Orenstein (2014), p. 162
  22. ^ Ravel, pp. 12–13
  23. ^ Ravel, pp. 26–27
  24. ^ Ravel, pp. 38–39
  25. ^ Durand, p. 9
  26. ^ Durand, p. 5
  27. ^ Durand, p. 6
  28. ^ Durand, p. 7
  29. ^ Durand, p. 8
  30. ^ Quoted in Orenstein (2003), p. 120
  31. ^ a b c d e Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical 1929–2009. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
  32. ^ "Celebrating Jean Martinon", Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 10 April 2022; and OCLC 1087399227
  33. ^ de Voto, p. 102
  34. ^ de Voto, p. 103
  35. ^ Nichols, p. 67
  36. ^ Nichols, p. 68
  37. ^ Puri, p. 56
  38. ^ Fillerup, p. 60
  39. ^ Puri, p. 61
  40. ^ a b Orenstein (2014), p. 256
  41. ^ Philip, p. 37
  42. ^ OCLC 658930360
  43. ^ OCLC 52201098
  44. ^ OCLC 9600795
  45. ^ OCLC 81774354
  46. ^ IDIS CD IDIS6671
  47. ^ OCLC 1087399227
  48. ^ OCLC 1226313631
  49. ^ "Celebrating Jean Martinon", Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 10 April 2022
  50. ^ OCLC 156593296 and notes to HMV LP ASD 2506
  51. ^ OCLC 871951740
  52. ^ OCLC 872338490
  53. ^ OCLC 742933086
  54. ^ OCLC 858508369
  55. ^ Notes to EMI CD HMV 5 73452 2, 1999
  56. ^ OCLC 813342953
  57. ^ Notes to Cala CD set CACD 1018, 1994
  58. ^ OCLC 315540273
  59. ^ Deux-Elles CD DXL 1090
  60. ^ OCLC 938482637
  61. ^ OCLC 1304332287
  62. ^ Chandos CD CHAN8905
  63. ^ La Bottega Discantica CD 8015203102019

Sources

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