Ravel, LA Philharmonic Orchestra, Zubin Mehta ‎– Daphnis And Chloë 2nd Suite / Ma Mère L’Oye / La Valse

Maurice Ravel was one of most famous composers of early 20th century. And he was really unusual one. What was common for many modern composers, he attempted to create original style and as many others he was clearly different from his contemporaries. But in opposition to trends dominating in modern music, the intellectual factor of his works was explicitly present in thematic and semantic associations. This was Ravel’s own way of creating the distance and classical stability. While inducing some elements of ancient cultures and intertextual references to historic styles, he became famous for his harmonic masterity of orchestration and color imagination. He seen music in various perspectives and this feature decided on differentiation of his oeuvres. He was also great composer of ballet music and his most popular symphonic pieces are connected to the dance. Even rare compositions written specially for orchestra have their dance context and the perfect example is La valse.
Ravel was one of first composers writing for Sergei Diaghilev, and these cooperation gave him position of prominent composer in the world of contemporary art. As avantgardist he was recognized and valued, and his ballets gave him widespread acceptance. Diaghilev comissioned Daphnis and Chloé in 1909, before successes of Stravinsky’s The Firebird (1910) and Petrushka (1911). Later Diaghilev commissioned also works by Claude Debussy (1913) and Eric Satie (1917). So Ravel was the one who opened for impressionistic style this most famous avant-garde ballet company. He did this with one of best scores ever written for stage. Its formal integrity is based on four leitmotivs and emotional profundity on plentitude of harmonic meanings. The whole scenic work duration is almost an hour, so composer made two suites, one for orchestra and one for orchestra and choir to promote this great music also during symphonic concerts.