(I've been writing about the greatest piano concerti of the last hundred years. My previous posts are here and here and here.)
Maurice Ravel’s fans had been wondering for about thirty years when he was finally going to write a piano concerto, but he kept putting it off.
In 1928, he visited New York City. At first, frightened by the prospect of Prohibition, Ravel stopped drinking before the trip. But when told there would be plenty of illegal French wine, he started up again. Upon his arrival at his Manhattan hotel room, his first question was, “Are my cigarettes here?” They were indeed; he simply couldn’t live without his Caporals. He had brought twenty pairs of pajamas with him; his fifty-seven ties had to be adjusted, as they were half an inch too long. He visited Connie’s Inn in Harlem, and George Gershwin, who wanted to take lessons from him (Ravel discouraged him, telling him that it was better to write good Gershwin than bad Ravel), took him to the Savoy Ballroom. Ravel had heard jazz before, but this was the real thing. His imagination was set aflame.
Ravel’s jazz-influenced piano concerto was not completed immediately upon his return to Europe, however. First came his infamous Bolero. Then came his piano concerto for the left hand, in one dark and unsettling movement. The piano concerto in G was finally finished in 1931.
It opens theatrically, with a crack of a whip, followed by a solo piccolo playing over piano arpeggios. It’s a crazy beginning. It then moves in fits and starts, with moments of wild abandon alternating with moments of great tenderness. But what I find most astonishing about it is its direct lifting of one of the central motifs of Gerswhin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
The second movement couldn’t be more of a contrast. Modeled on the second movement of Mozart’s clarinet quintet, it’s smooth and glacial. It begins with three minutes of a lilting and very slow waltz played by an unaccompanied piano. There are no fireworks here: the piano part is kept as simple as possible. Even Ravel, a terrible pianist, probably played it quite well. When the orchestra enters and touches of dissonance appear, the placidity and simplicity remain. It always brings tears to my eyes.
The third movement begins with a brass fanfare and a drum roll, followed by some extremely fast and rhythmic piano playing in G; suddenly piccolo and trombone enter in an entirely different key. The jarring contrasts continue, with martial elements jousting with cartoon music. Gershwin is back, to a degree (especially in the trombone parts), but here the jazz is undercut by fugal elements and extremely strict time—no swing appears.
The concerto as a whole is brilliant, quite mad, and very showoffy. Martha Argerich, with Claudio Abbado conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker, does it full justice.