| Page 13 Playing on words |  |
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Man-to-man... |
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| Ravel writes to his fellow student Florent
Schmitt, who has just won the First Prix de Rome : "[...] How unlucky you are, my
dear friend, to be to far from Paris [in Rome] to hear such things !"
And he adds, as if masculine brotherhood could not be perfect without a
touch of misogyny :"It
is doubtful that yould ever receive a letter from Miss Toutain, a
maiden
having to abstain from corresponding with a bachelor. This argument,
given by the mother of the young person, looked specioux to me, having
always considered a woman writing fugues as a bit hermaphrodite. Here
must end these confidences, unless I would be late for Mrs David's
dinner, where I hope to bring some original defamations about you."
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A. Orenstein, op. cit. p.64-65. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Between music fanatics... |
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| The Apaches, a group of music lovers gathered around Ravel, are elaborate a musical dictionary that may have been not approved by the Conservatoire (jokes being not always easy to translate, I left the French definition that could help to understand the word for word translation) : | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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M.D. Calvocoressi, Music and Ballet. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Between close friends... |
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| From
Switzerland, Ravel relates to Ida Godebska some chosen excerpts from
the Journal de
Genève : For sale, a mare coming from a
gendarme.
The French word for "coming from" ("provenant
de") is understood by Ravel in the meaning "fathered by"Maiden, wanting to divest herself from a sofa, could accept to loose something on it. |
A. Orenstein, op. cit. p136. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Bawdiness... |
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| When
l'Heure espagnolewas
achieved, the director of the Opéra-Comique, Albert
Carré
is frightened by its crude subject. In an ironical and comical letter,
Ravel tells how Carré tried to refuse the adulterous story
of
Concepcion : "[...]
I will tell you in
the details the adventures of l'Heure espagnole :
last Tuesday, I
take my best Tolède's voice and go to
Carré's with the sole Bathori (1)[...]. I croon more out of
tune
than ever, start breaking 3 notes of a drum piano, let Bathori alone
for the bravura airs, and wait for the supreme decision :
Refused... Impossible to impose such a subject to the ingenuous ears of
the Opéra-Comique's subscribers. Think ! these lovers locked
in
clocks, being taken up to the bedroom
! One knows what they will do there !! (sic) I admit that it is the
most improper situation staged since Jean
Schopffer.(sic)(2) Doubtlessly perverted by unbecoming readings, when I
was seeing lovers going in the woods, I had always supposed dishonest
intentions. I understand now, thanks to this severe moralist, the
Opéra-Comique's director, that my interpretation was vile,
and
that the less innocent misdemeanour of Carmen, of Manon, of Krysis or
of the Queen Fiamette,(3) was to put too frequently their finger in the
nose. And isn't it stupefying, this woman that admires a man's muscles
!"
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A.
Orenstein, op. cit p 94. Notes ; (1)
Jane Bathori, pianist and singer, had created the Histoires
Naturelles the year before.
(2) Jean Schopfer, alias Claude Anet, is awriter, a journalist, a tennis champion. He had never had a play staged at that time (1908), as far as I know... (3) Krysis is the heroine of Pierre Louys (Aphrodite) and the Queen Fiamette a charachter of Catulle-Mendes. |
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Crude.... |
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| Mimi Godebska relates : "On Friday, we were not eating
meat and Ravel, arriving, always asked :"What do we eat today? Polish
cauliflower ?"
Often he added a word cruder, saying "as Père Ubu would say". That's how he called my father." The Père Ubu, in Jarry's play (December 1896), had astonished the public by his first word, "Merdre" : "Shit", improved (?) by a slight "poetic licence". |
Revue musicaleQuelques souvenirs intimes sur Ravel. December 1938. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Eccentric... |
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"[...]Anyway, he prided himself,
on doing nothing like everybody. Invited to a dinner, he had a
cheese-board sent. One brought flowers, but he thougt to the choice of
cheeses[...]"
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Rosenthal, p136. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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And smiling !... until the end. |
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| Soon
before the unfortunate surgical operation, his friends take him to have
his head shaved, and they try to make him believe to a simple
radiography. But Ravel protests : "I know very well that they will
cut my nut."
The day before the operation, he rests at the Delage's, quasi-prostrated, and listen on the radio to a Ravel festival. The Bolero is played. "And then, at the end, a
tremendous burst of laughter of Rave, slapping his thighs. Then Delage
asked : "But, Rara, what are you doing ?"
And Ravel [said] jerky: " Ah! What a good trick I played tothe musical world!" According to me, the Bolero is not the best trick he played to us... |
Rosenthal, p 190-191. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Hiding a name in all his music is a feat. Funnier is to have left many clues of it. I see him smiling, thinking : "I could even give them the key !"
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Jeux d'eau, original idea for the title (B.N. Ms 15 198, Bob 5 943), not printed in the edition. |
David Lamaze
Le Cygne de Ravel ~ Le Coeur de l'horloge
Le Cygne de Ravel ~ Le Coeur de l'horloge