Ravel-Daphnis et Chloe suite No. 2, Octavio Mas-Arocas, Lever Du Jour

Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe suite No. 2, Lever Du Jour
Octavio Mas-Arocas, conductor
Interlochen Arts Academy Symphony Orchestra

www.octaviomasarocas.com

Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé is certainly one of the most colorful and beautiful scores ever written. It is a very skillfully orchestrated work and an invaluable resource for every composer, easily replacing any orchestration textbook. Sergei Diaghilev commissioned the ballet in 1909 for his newly created Ballets Russes. In the same year Ravel began working on the piece, and completed it in 1912. The premiere took place in June 8, 1912, with choreography by Michel Fokine; Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina danced the main roles and Pierre Monteux conducted the performance. The piece would become one of the numerous significant scores commissioned by the ballet impresario alongside Stravinsky's L'Oiseau de feu (The Firebird), Petrushka, and Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) or de Falla's El Sombrero de Tres Picos (The Three Cornered Hat) among others.

Known as a nonconformist composer, Ravel had already composed the piano score to Daphnis et Chloé in 1910 but the orchestration was subjected to many revisions. During this time Ravel was also at work orchestrating the suite from Ma Mere l'Oye and composing the Valses Nobles et Sentimentales. Even more, a year before Ravel completed the ballet score, a suite from Daphnis had been already prepared and performed.

The ballet premiere left listeners and critics divided. Cuts into rehearsal time, complications of scheduling, and physical exhaustion at the end of a long season lowered the level of the performance. Nonetheless, the music soon established itself as one of the most important works of the twentieth century, one of Ravel's masterpieces, and an essential work in the orchestral repertoire.

Based on a Greek pastoral attributed to Longus, the story is as follows: Daphnis and Chloé are abandoned as children on the isle of Lesbos. Found by shepherds they grow up together gradually falling in love. Chloé is abducted by pirates, and Daphnis, with the help of the nymphs, evokes the god Pan for help. The formidable shadow of Pan appears and the pirates flee, bewildered. Pan saves Chloé in remembrance of the nymph Syrinx, whom the god loved. Daphnis declares his love for Chloé and they dance with a group of young people in joyous tumult.

This is the performance of the second of the two suites that Ravel extracted from the Ballet. This Suite corresponds to the third part of the ballet when Daphnis and Chloé finally reunite again. In the course of the piece Daphnis imitates Pan playing a charming melody with the flute which has become one of the most famous and beloved solos for the instrument in the orchestral repertoire. The Dance Finale is another famous Bacchanal where the whole orchestra dances to demoniac rhythms in a display of intense virtuosity.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Octavio Mas-Arocas
• Interlochen Arts Academy
• Orchestra
• Ravel
• Daphnis et Chloe
• Suite No. 2
• Lever Du Jour
• conductor
• orchestra