Ravel

you started by saying that Ravel was bordering on atonal.
then proceeded with Ravel's piano concerto sounding "strange".
then someone chimed in with "boring saxophone music".

I'm sorry if I was harsh, but... come on!

Ravel is one of the EASIEST 20th century composers to get into.

Bolero, anyone?

Dawn from "Daphnis et Chloe"?

The adagio from his piano concerto?

These are almost "pops standards" in classical music.

Listen to (the orchestrated version of) "Ma Mère l'Oie" (Mother Goose), the ballet he did. It's wonderful!

I hate this piece, but, the "Pavane pour in infante défunte" is another pops standard.

You really need to be stretching your ears a bit, if that sounds "strange" to you. I know it's your opinion. But *I* was also once a "young composer". Actually, I was a young pianist when I performed the Ravel piano concerto. I was 17 at the time, and it was about the most "standard" thing I was playing at that time. I was performing and enjoying some considerably more "strange-sounding" pieces.

I don't mean to say I was better or anything.. but I don't understand how come so FEW young people on this forum appear to have any knowledge of what is basically VERY standard repertoire.

The fact that I knew these pieces when I was 15-16 isn't any great credit to me. Don't your music teachers teach you guys anything? My piano teacher had me playing Bartok when I was 10. I had already performed half of Debussy's piano music by the time I was 16 (and the other half before I hit 20, including the recently - at that time - published piano trio).

You shouldn't be angry at me for reprimanding you on your limited repertoire.

You should be angry at your MUSIC teachers!
You're the ones getting the short end of the stick.
You're the ones who are not being taught all you could be taught.
Your music teachers have an obligation to be teaching you about ALL sorts of music.

i'll take ravel over debussy

For what my 2 cents are worth I would say the same .

I love Ravel's string quartet, never been a huge fan of Bolero though...

he was a genius orchestrator listen to his Mussorgsky's pictures at an exhibition
probably better than the original.

I still prefer Debussy when it comes to solo piano pieces. But I find I like Ravel's chamber music better. Both have great string quartets though.

Really.. I didn't know that he didn't write any sax quartets... considering that there is a book of them in a music store and some sheet music at my school. Its possible that they were arrangements of string quartet music, since I didn't really read anything past the "RAVEL" on the top right corner of the music. In any case, whatever transcriptions of works they are from... the music is just white. I would not torture my mouth to sit and play that no matter how genius it is. Yeah. my thoughts on Ravel are: Great composer with a lot of ideas, but I just am turned off by the modal aspect of his music. It just seems too foreign to me, and that's probably because I don't listen to impressionistic music. I do believe that using the tried-and-true structure of the classical era with new impressionistic ideas was a good thing to do. Its too bad that his style did not carry through for very long afterwards, with the advent of modernism.

Does anybody else agree when I say Daphnis and Chloe may be THE greatest masterpiece in orchestration? Insanely intricate but so rich...

Well, I just took the time to listen to two Ravel pieces. The Piano Concerto for the Left Hand and the G major concerto.

The Concerto for the Left Hand had about 5 minutes of the most interesting music I've heard in a while. Too bad it is a 20 minute-long concerto. The first 7 minutes or so I did not understand. I found them utterly empty and boring. The orchestra made some noise, then the piano did some random solo stuff. Then the orchestra made some more noise, and the piano went off on tangent again. Like I said, I did not understand it, I did not feel a sense of cohesion. The next few minutes, however were quit interesting starting with a scherzo-sounding section. A few bits here and there made me think strongly of Gershwin, but only briefly. The last 4 minutes of the concerto ...... were beyond me. I did not like the ending one bit and the piano played for way too long by itself. I think the work hardly deserves to be called a concerto, but the fact that some of the material was interesting and only written for left hand almost made it worth the listen for me.

The G major concerto, I am listening to as I type here. I am hearing hints of Gershwin all over the place... is there a reason for this? Some sort of connection? I find it odd that I'm relating Ravel and Gershwin. I liked the beginning of the first movement, but a lot after that sounded like musical ranting. It was frantically telling something, but I'm not sure what. I did enjoy it though, just a few minutes in the middle lost my interest. The second movement was beautiful, but I was slightly annoyed that the piano played by itself for such a long period of time - I like to see the solo and the orchestra treated more equally myself. The third movement was ... frantic. That is all I can remember. Was fun to listen to, but not something I really wanted to pay attention to.

I didn't find any of this music "weird" or "odd" ... it was just different. It was not simple, it was rather complex - I could tell it was not atonal and I don't know how you could possibly think of it has having atonal or chromatic characteristics - it was just dissonant here and there and threw the listener for a loop a few times. Nothing wrong with that.

ravel does connect with jazz and gershwin