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Description
Arranged by Robert Stallman
Duration: 18 min.
... Ravel’s return to music began with Le Tombeau de Couperin, started in 1916 and completed a year later. Organized as a French baroque suite in six dance movements, Le Tombeau (“Homage”) is indirectly inspired by François Couperin’s harpsichord music, for which Ravel held a special fondness. (He had often heard Wanda Landowska play Couperin on her two-manual Erard harpsichord.) Each movement is dedicated to a fallen friend of World War I; yet in tone Le Tombeau is actually more cheerful than austere. This dance suite presents the restrained elegance and formality of the French Baroque, juxtaposed with Ravelian harmonic and melodic treatment. Ravel himself called the work “un adieu dans un sourire” (“a farewell tucked into a smile”) ...
Duration: 18 min.
... Ravel’s return to music began with Le Tombeau de Couperin, started in 1916 and completed a year later. Organized as a French baroque suite in six dance movements, Le Tombeau (“Homage”) is indirectly inspired by François Couperin’s harpsichord music, for which Ravel held a special fondness. (He had often heard Wanda Landowska play Couperin on her two-manual Erard harpsichord.) Each movement is dedicated to a fallen friend of World War I; yet in tone Le Tombeau is actually more cheerful than austere. This dance suite presents the restrained elegance and formality of the French Baroque, juxtaposed with Ravelian harmonic and melodic treatment. Ravel himself called the work “un adieu dans un sourire” (“a farewell tucked into a smile”) ...
