A PERFORMER'S STUDY OF THE PIANO SONATA BY AARON COPLAND AND

LE TOMBEAUDE COUP ERIN BY MAURICE RAVEL

A Dissertation

Presented to the Committee on Advanced Studies

of the School of Church Music

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Fort Worth, Texas

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Musical Arts

by

Young Kyoung Kwon

March 2009

UMI Number: 3356912

Copyright 2009 by

Kwon, Young Kyoung

All rights reserved

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APPROVAL SHEET

A PERFORMER'S STUDY OF THE PIANO SONATA BY AARON COPLAND AND LE TOMBEAUDE COUPERINBY MAURICE RAVEL

Young Kyoung Kwon

First Reader

/ J > /1M\O\AS IAA^XAMA^K^VA-Second Reader

Chairman, Committee on Advanced Studies

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this document is to provide a performer's analysis of the Piano

Sonata by Aaron Copland and Maurice Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin, as well as to

assist the pianist in understanding his/her role as a musician of the twenty-first century.

Each chapter presents a brief biography and discusses the musical styles and

characteristics of each composer. The first chapter discusses American classical music in

the twentieth century and how the two World Wars affected musical life in the United

States. Chapter 1 concludes with a discussion of Copland's influence on and contribution

to .American music. The second chapter deals with modern French pianism beginning in

the nineteenth century and introduces the methods of significant teachers such as Alfred

Cortot and Marguerite Long. It also discusses the life of Ravel and his influence on and

contribution to piano music. The fourth part of each chapter is devoted to an

interpretation and analysis of the respective works by the two composers, Copland's

Piano Sonata and Le Tombeau de Couperin by Ravel. The analyses focus on both

practical and theoretical aspects of performance practice, harmony, rhythm, melody,

texture, and structure of the pieces. This document was prepared in conjunction with a

DMA lecture recital of the works discussed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

LIST OF FIGURES vi

Chapter

1. PIANO SONATA BY AARON COPLAND 1

I. Biography of Aaron Copland.... .... , 1

II. American Classical Music in the Twentieth Century 13

III. The Music of Aaron Copland and the Stylistic Character of his Piano

Music......... 19

IV. Analysis and Interpretation of the Piano Sonata 27

V. Copland's Influence on American Composers.... 43

2. LE TOMBEAUDE COUPERINBY MAURICE RAVEL 48

I. Biography of Maurice Ravel 48

II. Modern French Pianism , 57

III. The Music of Maurice Ravel and Stylistic Characteristics of his

Piano Music. 61

IV. Analysis and Interpretation of Le Tombeau de Couperin ...70

CONCLUSION 95

BIBLIOGRAPHY 97

v

LIST OF FIGURES

Piano Sonata by Aaron Copland Page

Figure 1. First motive in the key of B-flat minor in the first movement, mm. 1-2 28

Figure 2. Second motive in the key of B-flat minor in first movement, mm. 3-5 29

Figure 3. First and second motives in the first theme 30 in the first movement, mm. 96-99

Figure 4. The second theme in the first movement, mm. 58-61 30

Figure 5. Frequent tertian and seventh chords in the first movement, mm. 64-74 31

Figure 6. Expansion of motive in the development, mm. 123-30 31

Figure 7. Toccata-like figure with recurring A in Allegro, mm. 155-66 32

Figure 8. The returning theme accompanied with arpeggiated left-hand 32 passage-work in the first movement, mm. 217-18

Figure 9. " Economic use of motive by varying and expanding it in the first movement, 33 mm. 26-37

Figure 10. First theme of the second movement, mm. 1-3 34

Figure 11. Second theme of the second movement, mm. 54-56 34

Figure 12. Arranging and expansion of the first theme in the second movement, 35 mm. 66-76

Figure 13. Parallel sixths in the middle section of second movement, mm. 223-27 35

Figure 14. Rhythmic element in the second movement, mm. 171-76 36

Figure 15. Economic use of elements in the second movement, mm. 268-77 37

vi

Figure 16. The expansion of the motive in the introduction to the third movement, 38 mm. 1-20

Figure 17. Scherzo-like passage in the third movement, mm. 31-40 39

Figure 18. The four-note motive in the third movement, mm. 46-48 39

Figure 19. Expansion of the four-note motive in the third movement, mm. 132-40 40

Figure 20a. Frequent changes of meter in the first movement, mm. 250-55 41

Figure 20b. Frequent changes of meter in the second movement, mm. 251 -62 41

Figure 20c. Frequent changes of meter in the third movement, mm. 74-76 42

Figure 21. Opening theme of the first movement recurring in the closing of the third 42 movement, mm. 87-96

Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel

Figure 22. Grace notes on the beat in the Prelude, mm. 1-2 73

Figure 23. Sweeping pianistic passages in the Prelude, mm. 81-84 73

Figure 24. Left-hand chromatic movement in the Prelude, m. 14 74

Figure 25. Ostinato bell-like sound in the Prelude, mm. 31-36 74

Figure 26a. Piano version with oboe sound in the Prelude, mm. 21-23 74

Figure 26b. Orchestral version scored for oboe in the Prelude, mm. 22-23 75

Figure 27 Final tremolo and closing in the Fugue, mm. 93-97 75

Figure 28. The four-note fugal subject and answer in the Fugue, mm. 1-4 76

Figure 29. Stretto in the Fugue, mm. 58-61 77

Figure 30. Rhythmic accentuation in the phrase in the Forlane, mm. 50-52 77

Figure 31. Opening of the Forlane functioning as a ritornello, mm. 1-8 79

Figure 32. Articulation of the first motive in the Forlane, m. 1 79

Figure 33. Accentuation on the second beat in the Forlane, mm. 10-12 80

vii

Figure 34. First episode in the Forlane, mm. 29-34

Figure 35. Descending melodic line in the second episode in the Forlane, mm.

Figure 36. Third episode (D) in the Forlane, mm. 124-27

Figure 37. Music box-like phrases in the Forlane, mm. 138-41

Figure 38. Two similar phrase with echo effect in the Forlane, mm. 148-55

Figure 39. The ending in E minor in the Rigaudon, mm. 158-62

Figure 40. Opening of the movement, mm. 1-4

Figure 41. Imitation of brass instruments in the Rigaudon, mm. 10-15

Figure 42. Middle section in C minor in the Rigaudon, mm. 37-41

Figure 43. Music-box element in the Menuet, mm. 119-20

Figure 44. First theme starting in the key of G in the Menuet, mm. 1-8

Figure 45. Second theme in the Menuet, mm. 9-12

Figure 46. Bell-like pedal point in the Musette, mm. 33-36

Figure 47. Recapitulation of the first theme in the Menuet, mm. 73-76

Figure 48. The second theme in the recapitulation in the Menuet, mm. 81-88

Figure 49. The opening of the Toccata in the Toccata, mm. 1-8

Figure 50. Slower Un peu moins vif section in the Toccata, mm. 57-59

Figure 51. Alternating themes in the recapitulation in the Toccata, mm. 160-72

Figure 52. Rhythmic Toccata with expressive melodic line, mm. 151-58

Figure 53. Repeat of the first episode in the Toccata, mm. 191-94

vm

CHAPTER 1

PIANO SONATA BY AARON COPLAND

I. Biography of Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 14, 1900, and

was the youngest child of Harris and Sarah Copland. Harris Kaplan was born around

1860 in the little village of Shavel, Lithuania. He left Lithuania to escape compulsory

seven-year Russian military service. An immigration official at the British port of entry

changed Harris's last name to Copland, which was the English equivalent to Kaplan.

Harris worked in London until he could save enough money to go to America. He came

to Brooklyn in 1877 and began a dry-goods business. He then brought his brothers and

sisters to the United States, one by one, and helped them settle here.

Aaron's mother, Sarah Mittenthal, was born in 1862 in the small village of

Vistinich, Lithuania, which was not far from where Harris Kaplan was born. Sarah's

father, Aaron Mittenthal, married Bertha Wittstein, and then came to the United States in

1867 or 1868. He settled in Chillicothe, Illinois, where he established a small general

store. In 1869, when the business became prosperous, he sent for his wife and his

daughter; Sarah was seven years old when she emigrated to the United States.

The Mittenthal family moved to Peoria, Illinois, in 1872 and then moved to

Dallas, Texas, when Aaron Mittenthal heard that Texas offered greater opportunities.

There Sarah attended public school and learned English and American customs, which

were quite different from the native Yiddish and Jewish traditions of her family. The

1

2

Mittenthals moved to New York in 1881, where Sarah started piano lessons and

developed her singing voice. Harris Copland and Sarah Mittenthal met at a family

gathering and were married in 1885. Harris and Sarah Copland settled in Brooklyn.

Around 1887, Harris opened a department store on the corner of Washington

Avenue and Dean Street in Brooklyn. Aaron was born in an apartment across the street in

1900, and lived there for twenty years. Harris Copland was a successful businessman in

the "melting pot" neighborhood where Italians, Irish, and African-Americans were

crowded together.

Aaron grew up feeling closer to his mother than his father, perhaps because of

Harris Copland's thick Russian accent. Sarah, on the other hand, had hardly any accent,

scarcely remembered Russia, and identified with her American background. She had a

more artistic nature than her business-minded husband. Aaron Copland inherited his

musical gifts and artistic sensitivity from his mother, while his forceful and decisive

personality was more like that of his father. Even though Aaron did not come from a

professional musician's family, the Coplands frequently gathered around the piano in the

evening and sang the popular music of the day. Other musical influences on Copland

came through synagogue services, Jewish weddings, and various social activities.

Aaron's sister, Laurine, studied at the Metropolitan Opera School in Manhattan,

and she often brought the programs and librettos to Aaron and told him all that happened

at concerts. Laurine was Aaron's first piano instructor, teaching him for about six months

when he was eleven. Aaron then began piano studies with Leopold Wolfsohn. Aaron

made his first public appearance as a pianist at the Wannamaker recital, Mr. Wolfsohn's

students' recital, which featured Wolfsohn's advanced pupils. There he played a

3

Polonaise by Paderewski. Aaron heard a Paderewski concert at the Brooklyn Academy of

Music when he was about fifteen years old, and he was impressed by the fact that

Paderewski was both pianist and composer. Copland realized that to be a composer he

had to study harmony, so in 1917, Leopold Wolfsohn arranged for Rubin Goldmark to

teach Aaron harmony and composition.1

Copland began theory lessons with Goldmark when he was sixteen years old,

studying harmony, counterpoint, and composition. E. F. Richter's Manual for Harmony

was his first textbook. Later Foote and Spalding's Modern Harmony, Its Theory and

Practice was used. Of his four years of study with Goldmark, Copland wrote: "Goldmark

had an excellent grasp of the fundamentals of music and knew very well how to impart

his ideas. This was a stroke of luck for me. I was spared the floundering that so many

musicians have suffered through incompetent teaching at the start of their theoretical

training."

On the subject of modern music, Copland stated that no one had ever told him

about "modern music" and that he happened upon it in the course of his musical

explorations. "It was Goldmark, a convinced conservative in musical matters who first

actively discouraged this commerce with the 'modern.' That was enough to whet any

young man's appetite. The fact that the music was in some sense forbidden only

increased its attractiveness."

1 Julia Smith, Aaron Copland (New York: E. P. Dutton & Company Inc., 1995), 11-21.

-y

Aaron Copland, Our New Music: Leading Composers in Europe and America (New York: McGraw-Hill Co., 1941), 214.

3 Ibid., 215.

Around this time, Copland attended concerts regularly. Walter Damrosch and the

New York Symphony played weekly concerts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and

there for the first time Copland heard all the Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky

symphonies. During this time he also attended performances of the ballets Scheherezade

and Le Spectre de la rose produced by the Diaghilev ensemble.

In 1918, with high school graduation approaching, Copland had to decide whether

to pursue a musical career or go to college, as his parents wished. Though his parents

desired their son to have a more practical profession, they gave their consent as he

decided to pursue a career in music, hoping that after another year or two of musical

study, Aaron would change his mind.

One day while reading Musical America Copland saw an advertisement

announcing the establishment of a School of Music for Americans, at Fontainebleau.

Actually, Fontainebleau was a French school for Americans, founded with an American

organizing committee headed by Walter Damrosch. The school was inaugurating its first

session during the summer of 1921. The American committee awarded Copland one of

nine scholarships to Fontainebleau,5 and he set sail for France in June 1921. The

Fontainebleau School, not far from Paris, was the only regular music school that he ever

attended. Copland's composition teacher, Paul Vidal, was conservative in musical

matters and his thick French dialect made it difficult for Copland to understand him.6

A fellow student, Djina Ostrowska, introduced Copland to the excellent young

4 Smith, 24.

5 Ibid., 30-37.

6 Copland, 71-79.

5

harmony teacher Nadia Boulanger. At first, Copland had little interest in other teachers,

because he felt he had completed his harmonic studies with Goldmark. The first day

Copland attended her class, Mile. Boulanger was teaching the harmonic structure of one

of the scenes from Boris Godounow. Later Aaron stated, "No one to my knowledge had

ever before thought of studying composition with a woman. . . . Everyone knows that the

world has never produced a first-rate woman composer; so it follows that no woman

could possibly hope to teach composition. Moreover, how would it sound to the folks

back home?"7 However, Copland had never seen such enthusiasm and clarity in teaching

before. Boulanger taught orchestration, as well as harmony, at Fontainebleau, and

Copland attended her classes at every opportunity.

Aaron visited Mile. Boulanger in the fall of 1921 and asked her to accept him as a

pupil. Regarding his teacher, Copland said that she possessed two qualities that made her

unique: "her consuming love for music, and. . . her ability to inspire a pupil with

confidence in his own creative powers. Add to this an encyclopedic knowledge of every

phase of music past and present, an amazing critical perspicacity, and a full measure of

feminine charm and wit."8 When asked to cite the most important musical event of his

life, Copland enthusiastically replied, "My introduction to Nadia Boulanger and her

acceptance of me as a pupil!"9

Nadia Boulanger was born in Paris. She studied organ with Alexander Guilmant

and Louis Vierne, composition with Gabriel Faure and Charles-Marie Widor, and

7 Ibid., 217-9

8 Smith, 43-45

9 Ibid., 45.

6

accompaniment with Paul Vidal. Boulanger won first prizes at the Paris Conservatoire in

harmony, counterpoint, fugue, organ, and accompanying. As a teacher, she hosted salons

for all of her pupils. Occasionally the guests included distinguished artists, composers, or

conductors, and the students were introduced to them.

Copland studied composition, orchestration, and score-reading with Boulanger.

Orchestration was studied in classes with other private students, and at various sessions

of these group classes, proficient flautists, oboists, clarinetists, or other orchestral players

came to demonstrate the timbre and individual characteristics of their particular

instruments. In score-reading lessons, Boulanger pleased an unfamiliar score on the

piano, and the student was required to play it to the very end, no matter how slowly he

" played. Boulanger often reminded her students, "Take the musical scores with you when

you go to a concert or the opera. Study the music as you hear it. Listen to the same work

over and over again, until you know all of the music, every little phrase."10

In later years Copland described Boulanger as a woman who " knew everything

there was to know about music, pre-Bach and post-Stravinsky, and knew it cold. All

technical know-how was at her fingertips; harmonic transposition, the figured bass, score

reading, organ registration, instrumental techniques, structural analysis, the school fugue

and the free fugue, the Greek modes and Gregorian chant." n As the months passed,

Copland realized that Boulanger was much more than a highly skilled and perceptive

composition teacher stating, "She was a continuing link in that long tradition of the

w Copland, 218-19.

1 Arnold Dobrin, Aaron Copland: His Life and Times (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1962), 39-40.

7

French intellectual woman in whose salon philosophy was expounded and political

history made."12

At the Fontainebleau graduation concert in September, Copland gave the first

performance of his piano piece, The Cat and the Mouse, written in 1920 while studying

with Goldmark. A French publisher, Jacques Durand, was present at the concert and

offered Copland five hundred francs (approximately $35) for the world rights of this

work, with a guarantee of instant publication. Copland felt it was a great compliment that

the publisher of Debussy's works found value in his short piano piece, and he accepted

the offer.

Copland preferred to do most of his creative work at night, though he did some

composing during the day. He also practiced piano seriously several hours a day,

studying the first year with Ricardo Vines, a Spanish teacher, with whom Poulenc also

studied.13

Cafe life was important at Fontainbleu. Cafes were located along broad

boulevards, and large outdoor tables occupied much of the sidewalk space. Most of the

social life of the young students took place in these cafes.14 Copland often attended

foreign-made films, especially German movies, and it was a German film that is assumed

to be the source of the inspiration for his first ballet, Grohg}5

To broaden his knowledge of Europe and to become acquainted with various

12 Ibid., 40.

13 Smith, 43-47.

14 Dobrin, 39-40.

15 Smith, 50.

8

countries, Copland traveled to as many European countries as possible during his stay

abroad. In 1921 he went to London for the Christmas holidays and made a short trip to

Italy during the Easter vacation. He spent about two weeks in Italy, attending concerts in

Milan, Florence, and Rome. In early June 1922, Copland went to Berlin. While Paris was

the city of the victors of World War I and the center of European intellectual and creative

life, Berlin was the opposite: defeated and exhausted economically and militarily.

Copland felt that Berlin was not a place for a young composer.

Copland returned to Paris in October 1922 to begin his second season's work with

Boulanger, more convinced than ever that she was the right teacher for him. In January

1923, the Societe Musicale Independante presented the first performance of Copland's

Passacaglia, played by the pianist Daniel Ericourt. It was dedicated "a Mademoiselle

Nadia Boulanger."16

In July 1923, Copland went to Vienna to spend the summer, and in August he

went to Salzburg to attend the first festival of the International Society for Contemporary

Music. He was thrilled to see many of the world's leading composers performing their

music at the festival. Among the composers there were Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg,

Bela Bartok, Florent Schmitt, Ernst Kfenek, Arthur Honegger, Gian Francesco Malipiero,

Ferruccio Busoni, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Paul Hindemith. Copland

listened to jazz in Vienna's popular bars. Though Copland had been exposed to American

popular music in his childhood, it was in a popular bar in Vienna in 1923, when he first

recognized the potential of j azz.17

b Ibid., 50-54.

7 Ibid., 56-60.

9

During the spring of 1924, Boulanger recognized that young Copland was now

ready to start his own career as a composer and asked her friend and conductor, Serge

Koussevitzky, to look at some of his compositions. The conductor consented and also

invited his friends, including Prokofiev, to examine Copland's music while he was

present. Copland brought his recently completed first orchestral work, Cortege macabre,

which he played on the piano for Koussevitzky. The conductor liked the work and told

Copland he would perform it the following season with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

That introduction of Copland to Koussevitzky was an important event in his development

as a composer. Koussevitzky became young Copland's friend and artistic mentor in

America, and he conducted many premiere performances of Copland's works.

Towards the end of Copland's stay in France, Boulanger was invited to America

for some appearances and organ performances with the New York and Boston Symphony

Orchestras. Utterly believing in his musical gifts, Boulanger asked Copland to compose a

work for her. Copland agreed to do so, even though until that time he had never written

any works for the organ as a solo instrument and had never heard any of his own

orchestrations. Still, in May of 1924, he composed some preliminary sketches for the

organ symphony.

In the spring of 1924, as it came time for Copland to return to the United States,

his fellow students threw a farewell party for him. Copland sailed for New York in the

middle of June. This marked Copland's transition from a student composer to an artist.18

Upon returning to the United States, Copland found New York a different place

than he had left three years earlier. An artistic rebellion had developed and transformed

18 Smith, 62-65.

10

the thinking of many culturally minded people. Before World War I, America had been

completely subservient to Europe in artistic matters but now it was beginning to develop

self-confidence and national pride. The movement began with painting and literature and

surfaced in music with the 1924 establishment of the League of Composers in New York.

The journal Modern Music provided a chronicle of modern musical activities around the

country for the 23 years between the two World Wars. Copland, fresh from his Parisian

experience, immediately joined the movement.19

Upon his return from France, Copland established himself as a teacher, opening a

studio in Manhattan and printing announcements of his availability as a teacher. Around

that time, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was established and Copland was

chosen as the composer to receive a subsidy during its first year, 1925-26. The fellowship

was renewed for 1926-27. With the aid of the Guggenheim funds, Copland was able to

spend some time during each fellowship year (spring and summer) in Europe, touring not

only France, but Germany as well.

Beginning in 1927, Copland taught a course in contemporary music at the New

School for Social Research, where he lectured until 1937. He also taught at Harvard

University, replacing Walter Piston in 1935, when Piston was on leave.

In later years Copland expanded the scope of his travels, adding Latin American

countries. In the early 1930s Mexico, where his close friend Carlos Chavez was an

important figure in musical circles, became as much a favored visiting place for Copland

19 David Burge, Twentieth-Century Piano Music (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press Inc, 2004), 116.

7D

Arthur Berger, Aaron Copland (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), 16-19.

11

as Paris.

Between 1928 and 1931, a collaboration with Roger Sessions resulted in the

Copland-Sessions Concerts in New York. In 1932 Copland originated summer festivals at

Yaddo and Saratoga Springs. In 1937, he helped found the American Composers

Alliance, a fee-collecting society for composers. Copland was the president of ACA until

1945, but as he became more successful, he felt it necessary to join the American Society

of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), which had a larger membership.

In the early 1930s Copland gathered together several gifted young composers and

encouraged them to form the Young Composers Group. This was modeled after the

French "Six," which, with the aid of the critic Paul Collaer and the poet Jean Cocteau,

functioned as a unit to make it easier to attract audiences for their works. The Young

Composers Group was introduced to the public at a New School concert on January 15,

1933. Copland's organizing activity was primarily motivated by a desire to encourage

those contemporary composers who were generally neglected.

Although Copland only occasionally used Jewish subjects or themes in his music,

many listeners perceived his music, in one way or another, as Jewish, especially in the

1920s, when some of his pieces suggested connections to Russian-Jewish styles. Isaac

Goldberg asserted that "the ready amalgamation of the American Negro and the

American Jew goes back to something Oriental in the blood of both."22 Most writers

treated this matter discreetly, but some, such as Daniel Gregory Mason, Henry Cowell,

n Ibid., 20-21.

Howard Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999), 518.

12

Lazare Saminsky, and Virgil Thomson, were apparently preoccupied with Copland's

Jewishness. Mason claimed that Copland's Jewish background prohibited him from

writing genuine American music. Cowell also viewed Copland as an outsider amid a

fundamentally Anglo-Saxon culture. This, he maintained, prevented Copland, like

African-American jazz musicians, from composing genuinely American music. An

expert in Jewish music and himself Jewish, Saminsky despised Copland's work, calling it

"Judaic" as opposed to "Hebraic" music, which was based on ancient tradition, and he

attacked Vitebsk (1928), as well as Music for Radio and Appalachian Spring, for their

"Jewish color." Thomson also emphasized the Jewish character of Copland's work.

Thomson regarded Copland's famed economy of use of materials in his music as a

Jewish element, stating in a 1932 article, "Musically, he knows how to make five cents

perform the services of a dollar . . . Aaron Copland's music is American in rhythm,

Jewish in melody, eclectic in all the rest."

In any case, Copland never intended his music to be particularly Jewish in style or

content. Copland commented:

I accepted, never questioned my religion.. . . The Eastern European thing was merely a matter for my parents. It was background atmosphere, but it didn't exist for me in the sense of the life that I was then living in Brooklyn. What preoccupied me was the fact that America had not found its voice as Germany and then France had in producing composers in the music world. The Jewish national aspect had never preoccupied me.

In the 1980s, Copland's health started to deteriorate and he became disoriented,

failing to recognize people and places. He had no really close family ties, and it was

23 Ibid., 518-19.

24 Ibid., 522.

13

difficult for his friends to spend time with him, especially when he could no longer

recognize them. Copland died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia at Phelps

Memorial Hospital in North Tarrytown, New York, on December 2, 1990, several weeks

after his ninetieth birthday. Copland left his musical manuscripts, letters, photographs,

recordings of his music, and other personal materials to the Library of Congress.

II. American Classical Music in the Twentieth Century

American music has a short history and most of the sources of American practice

in harmony, counterpoint, orchestration methods, and musical structures are European in

origin.2

By the late nineteenth century, Germany's musical influence was on the decline,

while that of France was on the rise. Between 1890 and 1914, France and Russia

produced the works of Debussy, Ravel, Satie, and Stravinsky.27 Despite the pre-war

popularity of French Impressionism, composers after World War I rejected the delicacy

and refinement it represented.28 Paris became the unrivaled center of European musical

culture after World War I. Copland, eager to escape the conservative atmosphere of New

York, was immediately delighted with the French capital, home of Satie, Stravinsky, and

25 Ibid., 546-49.

Virgil Thomson, Twentieth-Century Composers: American Music Since 1910 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 16.

27 Ibid., 2.

F. E. Kirby, Music for Piano: A Short History (Portland: Amadeus Press, 1995), 290.

14

Les Six.

The chief force of musical composition in the United States was based on

European traditions, and particularly French ideas. Many Americans had an affinity for

French music. These included Charles Tomlison Griffes (1884-1920), who composed in

the manner of French Impressionism, despite his German training. Other composers

influenced by French musical ideas were Virgil Thomson (1896-1989), Walter Piston

(1894-1976), Arthur Berger (1912-2003), and Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987). Copland,

however, was the most important and influential of this group of American composers.30

From an American viewpoint, musical prospects in Europe were clearly more

favorable in France, and many young, bright Americans went there to study before World

War I. When they returned to the United States, they were orchestrating like Berlioz,

rather than like Wagner. These composers were adept at modal counterpoint, harmonic

freedom, and metrical subtleties, and were acquainted with structural and thematic usages

that were quite different than those that dominate German teaching. German influences

unquestionably contributed to the rise of American artistic standards. However, it was

through their studies in France that American composers tasted freedom.31

By 1910 American orchestras, soloists, and schools performed music in a very

European manner; in fact, any performance devoid of European influence was considered

unworthy. Musicians strongly emphasized performing German, French, or Italian music

as it was performed in the original country. On the other hand, young American

29Burge, 116.

30 Kirby, 348.

31 Thomson, 3.

15

musicians drew upon a rich tradition of hymns and old songs, along with the art of

ragtime piano playing and the powerfully growing force of jazz, to inform their own

compositions.

The German method was still the dominant system by which music was taught. It

was based on the music of Bach, Brahms, and Wagner, and had a decidedly Romantic

feeling with an emphasis on emotions and rhythmic flexibilities. Though the number of

German pedagogues was decreasing, the music of classical German composers was still

influential. French music had achieved equal status with German music, and the French

musical tradition encouraged the absorption of new influences. American musicians

studying in France could incorporate both French and German influences to create their

own musical foundation.

The period of World War I was a turning point for American composers and

performers. On concert programs and in the opera house, the incidence of German music

was restricted and was replaced instead by music of American composers. However,

conductors and orchestra managements were unaccustomed to programming American

pieces in large numbers and were unconvinced that this country had a practical concert

music repertoire of its own.

World War I inspired some American composers to write patriotic music, though

most of these pieces simply used a historical text or were tunes in the familiar Romantic

idiom. These pieces could not be considered European because of their inspiration, the

"Thomson, 17-18.

33 Barbara L. Tischler, An American Music: The Search for an American Musical Identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 90.

16

use of popular materials, or simply the nationality and patriotic intentions of their

composers. Nor could they be considered American, since they did not capture an

essential element of American cultural character. The influence of German high culture

in the United States was not easily wiped away, even with the creation of government

propaganda agencies. Local attempts to smear German-inspired culture and campaigns

against individual artists who placed art before politics still could not erase German

influence on American arts.

By the 1920s, a truly American music began to emerge. Square- and round-

dancing, metrical ragtime piano playing, folk singing, hymn singing, and a compulsive

rhythmic pattern all became prominent in the new American style. 5

In the 1920s three remarkable music schools were founded; the .milliard School in

New York, the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and the Eastman School of Music in

Rochester, New York. Boulanger's fame in Paris as a teacher of Americans led to a great

number of Americans coming under her influence. Beginning in 1921 with Copland,

Thomson, and then Walter Piston, Roy Harris, and Elliott Carter, eventually nearly every

significant American composer of that generation studied with Boulanger. Indeed, the

American composers who did not pass through her studio were either those of a younger

generation or those belonging to the twelve-tone school.

In the 1930s, there was an unprecedented expansion of the symphony orchestra to

smaller countries, colleges, and high schools, and these groups often played American

music. Schools bought instruments and scores, communities hired players and

34 Ibid., 91.

35 Thomson, 17-18.

17

conductors. When the symphonic territory was conquered, managers and educators

started promoting opera. Around 1934, American opera composers and producers began

working to make story plot playable on a stage and to make the language clear to an

English-speaking audience.

Around 1930, inventors developed a mechanism for combining sound with films,

creating a demand for competent musicians to compose scores. Most employed for this

task were German-trained composers. They wrote "neutral" music using the Wagnerian

leitmotif, with along Wagner's rich orchestral textures, and avoided musical

characterization that might have drawn too much attention to itself. The 1930s was also

the finest period in the creation and performing of blues. A variant of jazz called swing

developed and was scored for larger bands. Every year new operas, films, and ballets

were produced, and the symphony concerts routinely presented music by new composers,

as well as that of matured artists, such as Copland and Roy Harris.

The early twentieth-century reaction against German Romantic music provided a

basic driving force for the development of new styles of music. Some composers rejected

the Germanic tradition outright, while others took elements from the German tradition,

working them into something radically different. Elements and trends prominent in

nineteenth-century music were still influential in the first half of the twentieth century. In

France, the development of national musical styles and an interest in Baroque music was

important throughout the nineteenth century, and this combination became an important

part in twentieth-century music, ultimately affecting twentieth-century American music,

36 Ibid., 59-60.

37 Thomson, 8-9.

18

as well.38

During the Second World War, European masters, such as Hindemith, Kfenek,

Milhaud, and Schoenberg taught in America, as did Boulanger. American composers at

this time wrote more symphonies, ballets, and operas, while also teaching and expanding

the performance repertory. By the end of the 1940s American composers had produced

many new works, often exploring the limits of the tonal system. Yet, these were

considered fundamentally conservative when viewed from a post-war European

39

perspective.

After World War II, significant changes took place in American culture. One of

the profound events was the growth of technology. The recording and reproduction of

sound became increasingly important in the twentieth century, as did the instantaneous

transmission of sound via radio and television. Electronic transmission of all kinds of

information fundamentally affected the culture and individual lives. Information could be

shared instantaneously, regardless of how distant or remote the source was. This

accessibility also affected musical composition in that the music of once distant locales

such as India and Asia could have a greater impact on composers in Europe and the

United States than ever before.

Moreover, an international character emerged, which shaped musical life with the

instant transmission of knowledge and sound. Styles were no longer restricted to

individual countries, but could be developed and adapted anywhere in the world. Though

World War II had much to do with this internationalism, to some degree the situation had

38 Ibid., 277.

39 Ibid., 10.

19

already existed since the early part of the century: the influence of Debussy, Schoenberg,

and Stravinsky, for instance, transcended national borders. In the second half of the

century, individual national differences in musical composition virtually disappeared.

The developments of broadcasting, recording, and synthesized sound affected the

traditional ways of making and listening to music. Broadcasting and recording radically

changed the musical experience as well as musical performance.

The trend towards simplification was also a part of the broader international

movement. In Russia, in the early 1930s Shostakovitch was criticized for his lack of

simplicity. In Germany, the Gebrauchsmusik movement took form under Hindemith's

guidance. Copland was not only concerned with simplification, which was in great

demand, but also with serviceability. He wrote several practical works with this goal,

such as Music for Radio for radio broadcast, Outdoor Overture and Second Hurricane for

schools, and Of Mice and Men and North Star for movies. These works were simple,

direct, and immediate in their appeal to the common man.41

III. The Music of Aaron Copland and the Stylistic Character of his Piano Music

During the mid-1930s Copland established his own musical language and became

concerned with the general state of music in the United States. He was alarmed at the

growing gap between composer and listener and attempted to improve the situation by

writing lighter, less complex music. The result was the composition of popular ballets,

such as Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942), and Appalachian Spring (1944); soundtracks

4U Kirby, 363-64.

41 Berger, 27-29.

for movies and incidental music for plays, including Quiet City (1939), Of Mice and Men

(1939), and Our Town (1940); and with the advent of World War II, patriotic music,

including Lincoln Portrait (1942) and Fanfare for the Common Man (1942). All of this

music was accessible, and Copland won a large audience without compromising the

quality of his work. Privately, however, Copland was interested in deeply serious music,

as revealed in the Piano Variations and the Piano Sonata composed during this period, as

well as the Third Symphony (1946) and the Piano Fantasy (1957).42

The dance was always Copland's major inspiration, and he especially enjoyed the

excitement of conflicting rhythms. In 1925, his ballet Grogh was transformed into Dance

Symphony. His jazz experiments in the later 1920s were closer to dance than vocal music.

In 1934, he composed a ballet for Ruth Page and the Chicago Grand Opera Company

called Hear Ye! Hear Ye\, which was based largely on night-club music styles.

Copland made extensive use of the jazz idiom. Although jazz was gaining

enormous popularity everywhere, there was still a wide gap in 1915 between jazz and

classical music. In the 1920s American jazz bands made long and highly successful tours

abroad: in Europe, serious composers began experimenting with new jazz, particularly in

Paris, where musicians were in open rebellion against the aesthetic established by the

Impressionists. During his first years in Paris, Copland was astonished to discover the

high respect of so many cultured people regarding jazz. Stravinsky, who wrote Piano

Ragtime and Ragtime for Eleven Instruments using strong elements of jazz in both works,

Burge, 122.

Thomson, 53.

21

became one of Copland's first new sources of inspiration in the jazz idiom.

Most American composers began to think of jazz more seriously only after the

Europeans had recognized its value because composers in the United States were still too

culturally insecure and were used to following European traditions. By 1923-24, it was

trendy to listen to jazz throughout the United States. The exciting rhythms were "peppy"

and "snappy." An entirely new kind of musical vein developed with jazz played on

instruments such as the saxophone and the banjo. In the 1920s, as a young man, Copland

often went to Harlem night clubs, such as the Cotton Club, to listen to jazz. Copland was

particularly fascinated by the timbre of the jazz band and the special tonal color created

by the absence of strings. In later years Copland described how deeply moved he was by

hearing " the extraordinary rhythmic attack of the best brass sections, the unusual timbres

produced out of thoroughly familiar instruments, and the general spirit of freedom and

unconventionality surrounding a first-rate band."45

Regarding the question of the "seriousness" of jazz, Copland expressed his

feelings on the subject in Our New Music:

I'm afraid that it is too late to bother with the question since jazz, serious or not, is very much here, and it obviously provides pleasure. The confusion comes, I believe, from attempting to make the jazz idiom cover broader areas than naturally belong to it. Jazz does not do what serious music does either in its range or emotional expressivity or in its depth of feeling or universality of language.4

Copland believed that jazz basically had two vital expressions: the "blues mood or

Dobrin, 81.

Ibid., 82.

Copland, 125.

22

the wild, abandoned quality so dear to the youth of all ages." He found this emotional

range limiting, but was excited by the technical aspect of the jazz rhythms, which could

be applied easily to other musical styles. Copland thought that European composers only

toyed with jazz before quickly abandoning it, but he thought the results would be much

different in the hands of American composers. From this perspective he wrote many

important works, such as Music for the Theatre, the Piano Concerto, and the Symphonic

Ode.

Many years later Copland summed up his attitude, writing in Music and

Imagination:

In France, where the characteristics of French culture are evident at every turn . . . the relation of French music to the life around me became increasingly manifest. Gradually, the idea that my personal expression in music ought somehow to be related to my own back-home environment took hold of me. The conviction grew inside me that the two things that seemed always to have been so separate in America - music and the life about me - must be made to touch. This desire to make the music I wanted to write come out of the life I lived in America became a preoccupation of mine in the twenties.

The American musical ancestry from which Copland claimed to have derived his

music is as follows: William Billings, America's first important hymnodist; Stephen

Foster, who created an authentic folk music; Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the first American

composer to use Latin-American melodies in his compositions; Edward MacDowell, the

first American to develop a mastery of the composer's technical craft, thus putting

American music on equal footing with European music; Henry F. Gilbert, who used

"Dobrin, 84.

Aaron Copland, Music and Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), 79.

23

African-American music to create novel and fresh material; Charles Griffes, the first

American to write "modern music"; Charles Ives, America's most daring innovator and a

leading polytonalist; George Gershwin, who produced a jazz treatment of the African-

American folk idiom; and Virgil Thomson, who shaped the aesthetic of American music

with his simplicity. With respect to his modern musical expression stemming from a

European origin, Copland was the lineal descendant of Debussy, Scriabin, Faure, Mahler,

Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok, and Milhaud as well as the Mexican composer Carlos

Chavez.49

By mastering the tools of composition, which were a combination of his

American and European studies, Copland could speak the tonal language of his day. He

achieved an American idiom in which jazz is an ingredient for his serious works.

Copland reflected innovative tendencies through adapting, experimenting, and testing

contemporary elements such as polyrhythmic, polytonal, quarter-tone, and atonal

materials. By adopting Thomson's aesthetic of writing, which was more relaxed and

easygoing for popular use, and by using American folk sources for materials, Copland

was able to synthesize the achievements of Thomson, Billings, Foster, Gottschalk, and

Gilbert, to become the first American composer to exhibit true greatness in his theater

and absolute works.50

Copland's work can be divided into three stylistic periods. The first formative

style was developed from 1924 to 1929. This period is characterized by the use of the

jazz idiom and experimentation. His emotional musical language was already established

Smith, 293.

24

at this time, and he employed a liberal use of dissonance. Though European influences

are present, there is also a strong American essence. Copland wrote nine jazz-inspired

works. His Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (First Symphony), which was non-

programmatic, was composed for Boulanger to play in America. The climax of this

period was the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and the Symphonic Ode. The Symphonic

Ode contains elements that became the basis of Copland's second period.51

During Copland's second period, between 1929 and 1934, his works were rarely

performed, due to their complexity and experimental nature, as well as the general

public's lack of understanding of his compositional techniques. In this period, Copland

composed in a more serious esoteric or abstract style. He wrote a few instrumental works:

Vitebsk, Piano Variations and Short Symphony. During this period, Copland's critical

writings outnumbered his musical works, and he traveled extensively to Europe, Africa,

Mexico and throughout the United States.52

The third period was characterized by the use of folk music sources and the

simplicity of its musical language. This period extended from 1934 to 1955 and is

characterized by two prominent styles: an American form of Gebrauchsmusi, and

absolute style. Echoing Hindemith's 1927 statement, Copland expressed his

dissatisfaction with some composers' efforts to fulfill the needs of the American public,

saying, "A[n] entirely new public for music had grown up around the radio and

phonograph. It made no sense . . . to continue writing as if they did not exist. [It seemed]

51 Aaron Copland, "Jazz Structure and Influence" Modern Music 4 (January-February 1927): 9-14.

52 Arthur Berger, "The Music of Aaron Copland," Musical Quarterly 31 (October 1945): 432.

25

worth the effort to see if I couldn't say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms."53

In this period, he wrote very functional music for various purposes. Copland composed

for high school and college groups (The Second Hurricane), wrote commissions for radio

performances, composed exotic travel souvenirs (El Salon Mexico), and wrote theater

works, including ballets (Hear Ye! Hear Ye!, Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian

Spring), plays and films (The North Star), and an opera (The Tender Land).

Between 1939 and 1955, Copland wrote several personal and musical works in

service of the nation, including Lincoln Portrait, Fanfare for the Common Man, and

Preamble for a Solemn Occasion. During this period, he also wrote ten absolute works,

including the Piano Sonata, Sonata for Violin and Piano, Third Symphony, Concerto for

Clarinet and String Orchestra, and Quartet for Piano and Strings. His patriotic and

absolute works were closely related; for example, Fanfare for the Common Man was later

used in the Finale of his Third Symphony.55

The most consistent stylistic feature of Copland's music is the economy of

thematic material. His music also reflects the elements of cumulative phrase-extension,

declamation, and transparency of textures. In 1929, Paul Rosenfeld keenly observed:

The earmark of Copland's music is leanness, slenderness of sound, sharpened by the fact that it is found in connection with a strain of grandiosity. For we associate grandiosity with a Wagnerian fatness, thickness, and heaviness; and Copland's [piano] concerto and the finale of his [first] symphony . . . give us the pleasant

Copland, Our New Music, 228.

Ibid., 228-29.

Smith, 222-23.

Berger, 93.

26

shock of finding it both lithe and imponderous.

One of the most significant elements of Copland's melodic writing is his interest

in folk music. He attempted to achieve a simple style and content so that a wider

audience could be engaged. In his treatment of folk music, Copland gained extraordinary

success with his precise use of the essence of folk material. He adopted melodies directly

and also created original tunes along the lines of the traditional folksong. Copland

handled folk material selectively, transforming and abstracting the tune, so that the

essence of the material was conveyed with its specific attitude and emotion, ingenuity,

and personality. One of Copland's special devices in transforming a folksong was to take

a frivolous tune and make it broad or tender. In this way he could bring out the essence of

the folksong.

Traditional tunes also provided Copland with extra material. When confronted

with tunes, either from his own country or from other countries, Copland's primary

concern was to find out how much beauty and substance could be achieved by their

adoption and manipulation.

Copland composed some of his most important works for the piano. In his earlier

work the French contemporary style is evident. These include The Cat and the Mouse,

which was subtitled Scherzo humoristique (1920); Sentimental Melody; and two Blues

(both in 1926), all of which were composed in Paris while he was studying with

Rosenfeld Paul, An Hour with American Music (Philadelphia & London: J. B. Lippincort Company, 1929), 128.

58 Berger, 57-60.

Ibid., 92-93.

27

Boulanger. Beginning in the 1930s, Copland started to deliberately separate his music

into two categories: one was directed to the larger public while the other was more

serious and not written for the larger public. Among his piano music, in the first category

are two children's pieces (1936), two later Blues (1948), In Evening Air (1966),

Midsummer Nocturne (1948, revised 1977), and the Danzon Cubano for two pianos

, (1942). The artistically more significant serious works are the Passacaglia (1922), the

Piano Variations (1930), the Piano Sonata (1939-1941), the Piano Fantasy (1955-1957),

and Night Thoughts (1972).

These works all have some declamatory elements, written monophonically,

marcato, and fortissimo. His piano music often has an angular melodic line with the notes

isolated and the chords ranging over the extent of the keyboard. He frequently uses

conventional chords, especially triads, but places them in completely new relationships,

contexts, and progressions. Although large chord complexes are used, they are often

widely spaced. When these chords are played, they make the instrument resonate so that

the full quality of the sounds can be absorbed. A certain leanness and economy is

apparent in his piano music. Copland created an atmosphere of stable, objective,

detached, and independent harmonies, which were important qualities of the neoclasscial

movement, and led to a style that was far from the emotional character of German

Romanticism.60

IV. Analysis and Interpretation of the Piano Sonata

The three-movement Piano Sonata is one of Copland's most serious works.

Kirby, 348-49.

28

Completed in South America, it was premiered by the composer in 1941 in Buenos Aires

at an ail-American concert sponsored by La Nueva Musica. The work was composed

over two years between 1939 and 1941 and was dedicated to Clifford Odets, who

commissioned it. ' It has, in general, a slow-fast-slow scheme, and in this respect this

sonata is reminiscent of Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 111 or Ives's Concord Sonata, both of

which end with slow movements. Like other piano works of Copland, motivic material

plays an important part in the structure. Copland's piano writing creates a sense of

spontaneity within a carefully structured form.

The first movement is in sonata-allegro form, yet not in the conventional manner.

The exposition has two themes which, with their thematic development, make up more

than half of the first movement. The first declamatory theme has two motives that are

very important elements in this sonata. The first motive is a descending melody and

opens with a dramatic B-flat minor chord (Fig. 1). The second motive is in the same key

and is more angular and uses syncopated dotted rhythms with parallel fourths in the right

hand and octave chords without the fifth in the left hand. This structure provides a more

open sound (Fig. 2).

^m §^ •fi^-tZi

f» -JUfc n_ hi T

m ip ^

Figure 1. First motive in the key of B-flat minor in the first movement, mm. 1 -2.

61 Smith, 230.

29

Figure 2. Second motive in the key of B-flat minor in first movement, mm 3-5.

The interval of a third is dominant in this movement. Copland also favored chords

of the added 2nd and 4th throughout the movement. The two motives of the first theme

are repeated in different keys or in an arranged form throughout the movement (Fig. 3).

\

Tempo I. (J 8o)

m p | £fi •marc.

^a^ gCg=TT qf

£E S m £E „—tk—++

v?n

s T=^g

§

Figure 3. First and second motives in the first theme, mm. 96-99.

The second theme is derived from the first theme and in the key of the

submediant, G minor; it also consists of intervals of the third, but it is more tender,

flowing, and sentimental (Fig. 4). Triads and 7th chords are important harmonic elements

in the exposition (Fig. 5).

30

±=t g (3 f ff If JP MH'M s«n& \ment

£=fei ^ f P PP <R 1^-1

Figure 4. The second theme in the first movement, mm. 58-61.

•fff- E^pE f: • /

ftr Jl _£ *Q , C^J ^ a -r r It e p F^ » y ? fcuznb Me grace note)

y ^ ^ s^-dte SETES *m f^ /

r* r& ££&4&dj% £jig

Figure 5. Frequent thirds, triads, and seventh chords in the first movement, mm. 64-74.

The development section begins in measure 133 in a rather free and dramatic

style. The theme is also developed and varied with a jazz and folk-like rhythmic and

melodic structure. When it moves to Allegro, it creates a contrast with the previous

dramatic octave passage. The four-note octave motive is varied and expanded in Piii

largamente and has recurring B Major and ostinato-like left hand passages (Fig. 6).

31

Piu largamente

mm M t-t-t-t-p- m^ -F-ptt &E&

^—rfft ^ b£-

poco a poco

1 ? * A

accel. molto -

SiSSS w^p^ m^T* WW* 0 %*

Figure 6. Expansion of motive in the development, mm. 123-30.

The Allegro is in A-Dorian mode. The frequent changes of meter and accented

rhythms reflect a jazz influence and also produce a toccata-like figuration (Fig. 7). In the

Allegro, the melody line is abrupt and angular with large leaps; the meter changes almost

every measure; and the texture is very thin and linear. In the development, the one-

measure-long motives are usually expanded and varied in all Piu largamente, Allegro,

and hdeno mosso passages.

32

i,f r f r »n cm —|—:—

>-

F ^ T ^ P

f* 1 \

1 rjr v p" 1 I 7 '

>- **

irJv ?=j

ml- / . a '

iff v r r i 7

-E C • t, ^ -J*—

- , = * s = J

J ^ t ) j |Sf-

1 J ! « J

>-

Figure 7. Toccata-like figure with recurring A in Allegro, mm. 155-66.

In the recapitulation, the first theme returns with the B-flat minor triad. The theme

here is derived from the first idea of the movement, but is more expanded and is

eloquently accompanied by arpeggiated left-hand passages (Fig. 8). The dynamic

markings constantly change every few measures, which adds an abrupt and irregular

rhythmic feel with the accents and syncopations.

Figure 8. The returning theme accompanied with arpeggiated left-hand passage-work in the first movement, mm. 217-18.

In the first movement, Copland frequently uses asymmetric meters such as 5/4 or

5/8, and often uses motivic material economically by varying and expanding it (Fig. 9).

The movement ends with dramatic triads. The second movement begins with an attacca

after a long pause.

pressing forward h.£*

mri mf

^KT±t M A

$2=4

3 y °f

& \*r~i$

w £

-»^m$m 3 f °f

% \* ]*V^T\+_ -a

E

tf~t

Figure 9. Economic use of motive by varying and expanding it, mm. 26-37.

The second movement is a fast, scherzo-like rondo (ABACADA) with a playful

and light character. It uses erratic and irregular meters and combinations of 2+3 eighth-

note groupings. Overall, this movement reflects a rhythmically jazz-inspired idiom. The

first two themes in the first section contrast with one another in mood and character; the

first theme is angular and light with its use of the intervals of a major second, a perfect

fourth, and a major sixth (Fig. 10). The second theme, which is chordal and declamatory,

is presented in a fast tempo. Both themes have whole-tone intervals in the top melodic

line (Fig. 11).

34

\

Vivace (J=208) half stacc

mp delicate, restless

ps Figure 10. First theme of the second movement, mm. 1-3.

Poco meno mosso

mm Mt a « - *

&

tf^^jJj^lft B J^rJ. I

Figure 11. Second theme of the second movement, mm. 54-56.

Throughout the movement, Copland manipulates the intervals of the first motive

(second, fourth, and sixth), expanding and rearranging them (Fig. 12). The interval of a

sixth is an especially important harmonic element, particularly in the middle section,

which consists of mostly chordal passages, but maintains its vibrant mood with

syncopation and mixed meters (Fig. 13).

35

A tempo

gtek gate m SU-if-

^

g a? ^?g(, si5 m. stacc. •

\

* & 1 & ^ ^ gml & S^ WE

iJii-H^fi ^ l l l aJ-pfi # ^ m ^ ^

Figure 12. Arranging and expansion of the first theme, mm. 66-76.

5"

fe* * * * P sp £ * — ^

PPwith 'suppressed excitement ^

^ ^

v

P ^ PPi ^ P Figure 13. Parallel sixths in the middle section of the second movement, mm. 223-27.

The second movement reflects the characteristics of economy in the clear

rhythms, sparse texture, and reduced chromaticism (Fig. 14).

36

fe $ •

?tr ¥ 8-

W m 3fc f^H V tif

%w ** ft 9- V-te ^

^ ^ ^ ^ 10 • * -

f

Figure 14. Rhythmic element in the second movement, mm. 171 -76.

The second movement incorporates the elements of folksong and jazz. The

melody is in an improvisatory, free style. The key signature indicates that it is B major,

which modulates to C major and later back to B major, but actually it has a rather atonal

sonority throughout the movement. The fast melodic figure in the right hand, which

extends to the interval of a sixteenth in the Poco meno mosso section, recalls the technical

virtuosity in La Campanella by Liszt. Like the other movements, the second movement

reveals Copland's economic use of elements, as he avoided unnecessary arpeggio or scale

passages (Fig. 15). The ending of the second movement is similar to that of the first

movement: it also has dramatic changes of meters, as well as dynamics with abrupt

accents, and it connects to the third movement by an attacca after lunga.

8~

$> " i j j j J n . j r7 |tJ H T ^ J J J J Q : J ^ ^ &

^

^niiJT? dtitu poop a poco

tWflft J"iU"P &s gji ffi fei ps g 9ji ¥^. ^ ^ 5a F="

Figure 15. Economic use of elements in the second movement, mm. 268-77.

The third movement completes the cyclic form of the sonata by returning to the

first theme of the first movement at the end. Overall, it employs a free adaptation of

traditional sonata form; its melodic line and chordal usage are freer and more

improvisatory than the other movements. Like the other movements, the accented

rhythm, melodic figures, and modal sounds reflect the influence of folk song and jazz.

The introduction of the movement begins with a declamatory chordal passage, consisting

mainly of syncopated rhythms. The first three chords are varied and expanded in the

opening statement (Fig. 16).

Andante sostenuto (J=76)

fe ,mp

4§ a-J- , A J. j» m ^

semplice J" • V poco de'plamando

s p^^ g F ^ 3 : = * -

^ S W

/ • > :

^ ^

mf mf

#1 S ^ 3P£ PS^ mpi -PP

—a— m P hesitant

delicate

&

Figure 16. The expansion of the motive in the introduction, mm. 1 -20.

The following scherzo-like passage incorporates elements of folksong and jazz

style. The left hand melody forms diminished seventh chords (Fig. 17). Copland uses

39

open chord passages to create bell-like sonorities in the poco meno mosso section. The

four half notes in measures 46 to 47, A - C - G - B, form an important melodic and

rhythmic motive in this movement. The melody, which consists primarily of the interval

' of a third, is sustained over a pedal point and double-dotted alto line (Fig. 18).

pp , _ "if.

Figure 17. Scherzo-like passage, mm. 31 -40.

poco meno mosso

Figure 18. The four-note motive, mm. 46-48.

40

The four-note motive occurs throughout this movement, and though it is inverted,

expanded, and harmonized with various intervals and patterns, it is easily recognized.

The tenuto and accent marks emphasize the motive (Fig. 19).

Figure 19. Expansion of the four-note motive, mm. 132-40.

Economy in the use of the motivic material is a feature of the third movement, as

is the predominant use of the intervals of a third and the tritone in both the right and left

hands. Copland creates an unstable and anxious atmosphere in this sonata by using

frequent changes of meters, keys, and dynamics markings. Metric and dynamic changes

occur throughout the sonata, and in several sections they appear in nearly every measure

(Fig. 20).

41

long pttuse, then attaoca

Figure 20a. Frequent changes of meter in the first movement, mm. 250-55.

Figure 20b. Frequent changes of meter in the second movement, mm. 251 -62.

Figure 20c. Frequent changes of meter in the third movement, mm. 74-76.

The opening theme of the first movement recurs at the end of the third movement,

thus creating, a cyclic structure (Fig. 21).

Figure 21. Opening theme of the first movement recurring in the closing of the third movement, mm. 87-96.

43

At the end, Copland brings back the four-note motive, creating a bell-like

ostinato, and employs extreme dynamic markings of ppp andpppp.

V. Influence and Contributions of Copland to American Composers

Although financial security often eluded composers of serious music, Copland

was one of the most financially successful composers in the world. When a score was

published and widely performed, royalties often were not paid. The only substantial

profits composers made were from theater and film music, and these two fields became

the source of Copland's considerable income.

Copland was a fluent writer and he could put complex musical ideas in a form

that had great appeal to the general public. His books were widely published and

translated, and this became another source of income. 2

In order to supplement his earnings as a composer, Copland preferred to lecture

and to write musical criticism rather than to support himself by teaching. His critical

writing was both functional and artistic. His first critique, Gabriel Faure: A Neglected

Master, was written when he was a young student in Paris in 1924. Copland wrote

several books. The first, What to Listen for in Music (1939), was comprised of the first

fifteen lectures he gave at the New School for Social Research during the winters of 1936

and 1937. The second, Our New Music (1941), traced the growth of contemporary music

in America, and it contained excerpts from some of the composer's critiques published in

Modern Music, The New Republic, and the American Mercury. The third book, Music

Dobrin, 187.

44

and Imagination (1952), is comprised of six lectures presented at Harvard University

during the 1951-1952 academic year.

The Composers Get Wise dealt with the economic difficulties of the professional

composer. In it Copland provided three main sources of income for "practicing"

composers: first, commissions to write a specific work, such as the incidental music for a

stage play, symphony, ballet, or film score; secondly, royalty payments derived from the

retail sale of published music; and lastly, fees collectible on the performance rights of a

composition protected under copyright law. The last one was chiefly discussed as the

newest source of income for composers, because it was one of the serious problems that

confronted Copland as president of the American Composers Alliance.

Of Copland's critiques, more than half of the periodical and newspaper articles

treated various aspects of contemporary music in America: twelve were devoted to

contemporary music and composers of Europe; four related to festivals of music; three

were reviews of European festivals; nine were reviews of new books about music; and

three were reviews of musical recordings. The last two articles were devoted to

personalities that were important in contemporary music: Nadia Boulanger and the

American music critic Paul Rosenfeld.

Copland offered a list of seventeen names of composers, whose music he believed

was significant. He divided this list of composers into five categories: (1) four Prix de

Rome winners: Leo Sowerby, Howard Hanson, Randall Thompson, Herbert Elwell; (2)

three revolutionaries: George Antheil, Henry Cowell, Roger Sessions; (3) five

freelancers: Roy Harris, Avery Claflin, Edmund Pendleton, Richard Hammond,

63 Smith, 263.

45

Alexander Steinert; (4) three pupils of Ernest Bloch: Bernard Rogers, Quincy Porter,

Douglas Moore; and (5) two pupils of Nadia Boulanger: Virgil Thomson, Quinto

Maganini. In this critique of his contemporaries, Copland's assumed the role of

"godfather" to American music, a position he filled with distinction for more than a

quarter century.64

In 1943, Copland wrote that he was convinced that music critics had only a

superficial knowledge of the music of contemporary composers and that they were

absolutely ignorant of the music written in America during the past ten years:

What the composers wanted is an American critic who would concern himself in the creation of an American music to the same intensity as did Edward Evans in English music or Henri Prunieres in French music." He concluded, "What we shall want of him is honest. . . not chauvinistic criticism, and judgments which are based upon a sound knowledge and comprehension of the music itself.

Most of the young composers who sprang up in the 1940s, unlike the composers

of Copland's generation, had not studied in Europe. Still, most of the younger composers

had contact with Stravinsky, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Milhaud, and Martinu, composers

who were living and composing in the United States in the late 1940s. In addition to these

European influences acquired in America, their older American colleagues provided new

perspectives for the younger generation in American music. Copland felt that it was

important that young American composers be influenced by Harris, Schuman, and

Copland as much as they were influenced by Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Schoenberg.

The works of the younger generation showed a wide variety of techniques, a practice

64 Ibid., 266.

65 Aaron Copland, "From the '20's to the '40's and Beyond," Modern Music 20 (February 1943): 78-82.

46

which Copland found healthy and natural.66

Copland wrote critiques relating to the contemporary problems of the lay listener,

responding to questions such as "Why must new music be so dissonant?," "Is it true that

the new composers care little about melody?," and "Is contemporary music supposed to

be without sentiment or feeling?" As an answer, Copland asked a question of his own to

the lay listener: "Why is it that the musical public is seemingly so reluctant to consider a

musical composition as, possibly, a challenging experience?" Copland stated that even

when he heard a new piece of music that he could not easily understand, he was intrigued

and wanted to hear it again. According to Copland, new music still sounded "peculiar,"

because most of the music on radio and concert programs, on records, and in school

curricula was devoted to the music of the past.

As Copland himself grew as an artist and individual, his influence gradually

extended to new successive generations of younger composers, throughout the 1920s,

'30s, and '40s, and he became a dominant influence on American music in the 1950s.

Preserving a high moral and artistic tone in his music and critiques, he projected this

influence through the his lectures at the New School for Social Research and elsewhere

for almost ten years, through the Copland-Sessions Concerts (1928-1931), which featured

the works of the younger men, through the Yaddo Festivals of American Music in 1931

and 1932, and through his teaching at Henry Street Music School, at Harvard University,

and at Tanglewood. He attempted to give the composers of his time financial security

through the American Composers Alliance, of which he was president from 1937 to

66 Smith, 277-78.

67 Ibid., 280.

47

1944. However, his music was the most important contribution to the younger generation

of composers.

Ibid., 283-84.

48

CHAPTER 2

LE TOMBEAUDE COUPERINBY MAURICE RAVEL

I. Biography of Maurice Ravel

Pierre Joseph Ravel, the father of the composer, was born in Versoix, Switzerland

in 1832 into a family of French origin. Joseph Ravel was an engineer with an inventive

mind who played a significant role in the development of the automobile industry.

Shortly after the Franco-Prussian War, Joseph Ravel went to Spain, where he was

involved in railroad construction. In Aranjuez, he met Marie Delouart, and they married

in Paris in April 1873. Maurice Ravel was born in 1875 in Ciboure, France. Marie

Delouart identified herself as a Basque, despite her Parisian upbringing, and Maurice

Ravel always felt close to his Spanish Basque heritage.70 Marie Delouart was a devoted

wife and mother, and Joseph Ravel, though he was an engineer, was keenly interested in

music. He studied music and encouraged his son's early musical inclination. The Ravels

were a liberal, sensitive, and devoted couple.

In May 1882, Maurice Ravel had his first piano lessons with Henry Ghys and

began to study harmony, counterpoint, and composition with Charles-Rene, a pupil of

Arbie Orenstein, Ravel: Man and Musician (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1975), 8.

70 Barbara L. Kelly, "Maurice Ravel," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., ed. Stanley Sadie, (London: Macmillian, 2001), 864.

71 Orenstein, 8-10.

49

Leo Delibes. Emile Decombes, a professor at the Conservatoire, was Ravel's second

piano instructor. At this time, Ravel produced some compositions, including variations on

a chorale by Schumann, variations on a theme from Grieg's Peer Gynt, and a sonata

movement of his own. In June 1889, twenty-four pupils of Decombes performed

excerpts from various piano concerti in a recital at Salle Erard. Ravel played an excerpt

from Moscheles's Third Concerto. Coinciding with this recital was the centennial

commemoration of the French revolution. Paris hosted an international exposition where

musicians and artists from fifty countries showcased their art. There French musicians

discovered Javanese gamelans, Annamite dancers, and gypsy orchestras. Rimsky-

Korsakov conducted two programs of works of Russian composers. The fourteen-year-

old Ravel was captivated by this event, and he retained a lifelong interest in Russian and

Asian music.

In 1889, Ravel passed the entrance examination of the Paris Conservatoire and

was enrolled in the class of Eugene Anthiome. In 1919, he won first prize in the piano

competition. He advanced to the piano class of Charles de Beriot and studied harmony

with Emile Pessard that year.74 Although he made some progress, Ravel failed to win any

prizes and was dismissed from Beriot's classes. He left the Conservatoire in 1895. Ravel

devoted himself to composition, writing the Menuet antique, the Habanera, Un grand

sommeil noir, and D'Annejouant de I'espinette in 1895-96. Ravel returned to the

Conservatoire in 1897, and in January 1898, he entered the composition class of Gabriel

72 Kelly, 864.

73 Ibid., 869.

74 Orenstein, 14.

50

Faure. Ravel also studied counterpoint and orchestration privately with Andre Gedalge.

Gedalge stressed the superiority of the melodic line and taught the works of Bach and

Mozart, which influenced Ravel profoundly. Ravel stated, "I am pleased to acknowledge

that I owe to Andre Gedalge the most valuable elements of my technique. As for Faure,

his advice as an artist gave me encouragement of no less value."

Although he produced some substantial works during this period, including the

overture Sheherazade, Entre cloches, and a Violin Sonata, Ravel did not win a fugue or

composition prize and was dismissed from the composition class in 1900. Ravel

remained with Faure as an auditor until he left the Conservatoire in 1903.

The period of 1900 to 1905 is known as the first "Affaire Ravel." During that

time, Ravel attempted to win the Prix de Rome five times. In 1900, he was eliminated

from the competition in the preliminary round after submitting a fugue and a choral work,

Les Bayaderes. The following year his cantata Myrrha won third prize, but in 1902 and

1903 his cantatas Alcyone and Alyssa failed to win prizes. In 1905, Ravel, having reached

the age limit, competed for the last time, but was eliminated in the first round when he

submitted a fugue containing parallel 5ths and ending with a major 7th chord. However,

public opinion and even the critic Pierre Lalo, who was normally hostile to him, favored

Ravel, who then established himself at the Societe Nationale de Musique with works such

as Jeux d'Eau and the String Quartet. They were annoyed that such a fine composer was

barred from competing in the final round of this prestigious student award, especially

once the scandal broke that all the finalists were students of Lenepveu, who was on the

75 Orenstein, 20.

76 Kelly, 864.

51

jury. As a result, Theodore Dubois resigned as director of the Conservatoire and was

replaced by Faure.

Despite his desire to succeed, Ravel was unable to conform to the expectations of

the Conservatoire and had an uneasy relationship with authority. His independent spirit

and his openness to a range of musical and literary expression had put him in an

uncomfortable situation with Dubois. Ravel and his Spanish pianist friend Ricardo Vines

spent much time together score-reading and playing four-hand arrangements of works by

composers such as Schumann, Mendelssohn, Franck, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev,

Borodin, Glazunov, Chabrier, Satie, and Debussy. They also spent time reading and

discussing the latest literature of Poe, Rimbaud, Huysmans, Villiers de 1'Isle-Adam,

Mallarme, Verlaine, and Bertrand. Ravel drew his texts from Verlaine, Mallarme, and

Bertrand for Un grand sommeil noir, Sainte, and Gaspard de la Nuit. In about 1902

Vines and Ravel became part of the group of literary, musical, and artistic

contemporaries known as Les Apaches (The Ruffians), which included the critic M. D.

Calvocoressi, the artist Paul Sordes, the composers Falla, Schmitt, and Stravinsky (in

1909), the writers Leon-Paul Fargue and Tristan Klingsor (pseudonym for Arthur Justin

Leon Leclere), and the conductor Inghelbrecht. The group met regularly to share ideas on

contemporary literature, music and art.77

By 1905 several of Ravel's works were performed at the Societe Nationale de

Musique. Faure had exerted his influence to secure a premiere for Sites auriculaires in

1898. Some of his first performances caused a stir, in particular the Sheherazade overture

(1899) and Histoires naturelles (1907), which had a radical text-setting. Ravel was

77 Ibid., 865.

52

attacked by the Schola Cantorum, which dominated the Societe Nationale and regarded

Ravel as an outsider. Ravel was also harshly criticized by Pierre Lalo and Gaston

Carraud, who compared Ravel's compositions unfavorably with those of Debussy.

Though Ravel acknowledged his admiration for Debussy in his writings and in acts of

homage throughout his career-such as his transcriptions of Nocturnes (1909) and Prelude

a I'apres-midi d'unfaune (1910), the dedication of the Sonata for Violin and Cello

(1920-22), and orchestrations of the Sarabande and Danse-he refused to be regarded as

an imitator. In the beginning, Debussy also admired Ravel's talent and especially liked

the String Quartet. Later though, he became cool towards Ravel, largely as a result of

controversies in the press and among their respective supporters.

In January of 1909, Ravel announced his decision to start a new society open to

performing French and foreign works, regardless of genre or style, and independent from

the authority of the Schola Cantorum.78 Ravel and several composers, most of them

pupils of Gabriel Faure, launched the Societe Musicale Independente (SMI) in opposition

to the Societe Nationale de Musique, which was supported by the followers of Vincent

d'Indy's doctrines of the Schola Cantorum, an institution established in 1894 for the

study of early music and counterpoint. Faure was appointed president of the new SMI.

The group presented its inaugural concert series in 1910. Ravel, as one of the

founders of the SMI, premiered his chamber work Ma mere I 'oye (Mother Goose) in the

concert. The following year Ravel exerted his new-found influence by promoting Satie's

music, and in a SMI concert, he played Satie's second Sarabande, the third Gymnopedie,

a prelude from Le Fils des etoiles, and with Ricardo Vines, the Morceavx en forme de

78 Ibid., 865.

53

Poire.19 In 1907, Ravel began work on a number of theatrical projects, including L 'heure

espagnole, hoping that its production would please his ailing father, who died the

following year.

Although Albert Carre accepted L 'heure espagnole for the Opera-Comique in

1908, he delayed its performance until May 1911 because he considered the subject

matter too risky. In 1909, Diaghilev commissioned Daphnis et Chloe for the Ballets

Russes. That same year Ravel met Stravinsky, who had already orchestrated works by

Grieg and Chopin for Diaghilev, and whose ballet The Firebird was to be performed in

Paris in 1910. The two became close friends, and in 1913, during their stay at Clarens,

Switzerland, they collaborated on an orchestration of Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina for

Diaghilev. Stravinsky showed Ravel his Three Japanese Lyrics, which were inspired by

the instrumentation of Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, which, in turn, influenced Ravel's

choice of instrumentation in his Troispoemes de Stephane Mallarme.

During this period, Ravel transformed two of his piano works into ballets. The

first, Ma mere I 'oye, was written in 1908-10 as a piano duet, and was expanded and

orchestrated in 1911. The second, Valses nobles et sentimentales, was orchestrated for the

ballet troupe of Natasha Trouhanova and was performed in 1912.

In 1914, Ravel began work on the Piano Trio. When the First World War broke

out, he rushed to complete the work in five weeks, and then volunteered for military

service. Ravel made several attempts to enlist in the air force as a pilot, but was refused

on the grounds of poor health. His letter to Roland-Manuel indicates that during that time,

Alexis Roland-Manuel, Maurice Ravel ,trans. Cynthia Jolly (London: Dennis Dobson, 1947; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1972), 58.

54

he was also working on other projects, including Zazpiak-Bat (a piano concerto based on

Basque themes); two operas, La cloche engloutie (based on a text by Gerhart Hauptmann)

and Interieur; a symphonic poem, Wien; and two piano works, Le Tombeau de Couperin

and Nuit romantique. Of these, only the piano suite, Le Tombeau de Couperin, and the

symphonic poem, renamed La Valse, came to fruition.

In September 1916, Ravel became ill with dysentery. Then his mother died

suddenly in January 1917. Ravel's relationship with his mother was his closest emotional

attachment, and Ravel was desolate. The effects of war, sickness, and his mother's death

decreased his creativity. The short piano work Frontispice, written immediately after the

war, reveals Ravel's confused emotional and creative state, with its lack of a clear

structure or tonal center. La Valse was completed only because of a commission from

on

Diaghilev, although the impresario subsequently rejected it as unsuitable for a ballet.

Ravel's health began to further deteriorate and he was advised to rest in the

mountain air. He spent the first week of 1919 at Megeve. However, insomnia and what

Ravel called "neurasthenia" pursued him. He continued to take commissions to support

himself. 81

During the summer of 1920, Ravel visited his friend Pierre Haour at the Chateau

de la Bijeannette. It was a hard-working holiday. Ravel planned to take part in a concert

of his works in Austria. His fame created an obligation to appear more often in public,

and at times his pianistic technique evidenced a lack of practice. At other sometimes,

when conducting an orchestra, his rigid baton revealed an improvised technique. Ravel

80 Kelly, 866.

81 Roland-Manuel, 82.

55

left for Vienna in October and returned to Paris on November 8, 1920, for the premier of

the ballet Le Tombeau de Couperin, which was recast as a suite of dances by Jean Borlin

and his company of Swedish dancers. The orchestra was conducted by D. E.

Inghelbrecht. Pierre Laprade was in charge of decor, though the costumes did not suit the

style of the period of Couperin. However, the production was pleasant and very

successful, and Ravel was able to conduct the hundredth performance of his ballet on

June 15, 1921.82

Between 1920 and 1924, Ravel produced three works in homage to his

predecessors: a Duo in memory of Debussy, the Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Faure

and Ronsard a son dme. While the setting of Ronsard was in Ravel's antique style, the

Duo, which became his Sonata for Violin and Cello, was more like his pre-war Piano

Trio in adhering to classical forms, but with a new austerity and rigor. A preoccupation

with economy of means and ensemble combinations continued in Chansons madecasses

and in the Sonata for Violin and Piano.83

After Debussy's death in 1918, Ravel was regarded as France's leading composer.

In 1920, he was offered the Legion d'Honneur, but he publicly refused to accept it. His

new status alienated him from some of his colleagues, as well as Satie and the younger

generation, including some of Les Six. Ravel also enjoyed success abroad. He toured

Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, and in 1928 he toured North America for four months.

The trip was organized by the New York agency Bogue-Laberge and supported by the

Association Francaise d'Expansion et d'Echanges Artistiques in Paris. Ravel conducted,

82 Roland-Manuel, 88.

83 Kelly, 866.

56

performed, and gave numerous interviews. He also lectured on contemporary music at the

Rice Institute in Houston, Texas. Visiting new countries in Europe and America often

inspired Ravel to compose. Ravel performed his newest piece, the Sonata for Violin and

Piano, in North America. The piece included a slow movement entitled "Blues."

In 1929-30, Ravel composed his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand at the request

of the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein. This technically demanding work allowed

Wittgenstein to play expressively without interference of his physical limitations. In

1932, Ravel toured Europe with Marguerite Long to perform his new Piano Concerto in

G Major. Ravel originally intended to play the concerto himself, but his friend persuaded

him to conduct the work and let Long give the premiere instead. This change of plans

upset Ravel's prospective hosts in Berlin and Vienna, and the performances continued

only after diplomatic intervention.

After the war, Ravel suffered continually from insomnia and often complained of

"cerebral anemia." In 1932 he was involved in a car accident and was slightly injured.

From that moment his condition worsened, and he was diagnosed as suffering from ataxia

and aphasia (Pick's Disease). In 1935, Ravel traveled to Spain and Morocco to rest, but

he was often so weak he could not sign even his name. His brother Eduardo and friends

continued to visit him and took him to concerts. Maurice Ravel died in Paris on

December 28, 1937, nine days after a brain operation.

Although Ravel refused most French honors, he received recognition abroad and

accepted an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 1928, as well as various

Ibid., 867.

57

diplomas from Spain, Belgium, Italy, and Scandinavia.85

II. Modern French Pianism

The Conservatoire Nationale de Paris, the oldest of modern music schools,

produced numerous fine pianists. The earliest important Conservatoire teachers were

Louis Adam, followed by Friedrich Kalkbrenner and Pierre Zimmerman. Zimmerman

took first prize in the school's piano competition in 1800, while Kalkbrenner won second

prize. Kalkbrenner's refined carezzando touch was passed along to subsequent

generations. Kalkbrenner and his fellow student, Zimmerman, were called "the

grandfathers of the French school." Their technique focused on the fingers and hands, an

approach descended from the refined touch of the Couperin-Rameau harpsichord

technique. It required a sensitive touch, and the fingers stayed close to the keys. Fingers

did not press deeply into the keys, and the touch was never to be energetic, like that of

German and Russian performers. French pianists did not have great emotional intensity,

but usually "flew lightly up in the clouds," reflecting the sophisticated Parisian culture.

The sound was fluent and the tone was shallow, superficial, and transparent; however,

there was a great emotional spirit behind the sound. This approach valued such aesthetic

graces as elegance, calculated proportions and subtle phrasing.

Camille-Marie Stamaty's style descended from that of Kalkbrenner. His pupils

were Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Camille Saint-Saens, who eventually taught Gabriel

Faure. Saint-Saens and Faure represent the essence of a refined French keyboard

85 Ibid., 867-68.

Q/r

Reginald R. Gerig, Famous Pianists and Their Technique (Bridgeport: Robert B. Luce, Inc., 1974), 315.

58

technique. Another Kalkbrenner student was Georges Mathias (1820-1910). He taught

Raoul Pugno (1852-1914) and Isidor Philipp (1863-1953), who became the great

technician and master teacher at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau.

Zimmerman's pupils included Antoine Marmontel (1816-1898), Charles-Valentin

Alkan (1813-1888), Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896), and Cesar Franck (1822-1890).

Marmontel taught many of France's most distinguished musicians, including Georges

Bizet (1838-1875), Claude Debussy (1862-1918), Vincent d'Indy (1851-1931), Louis

Diemer (1843-1919), and Marguerite Long (1874-1966). Diemer became one of the

greatest of all French pianists, premiered many French works including the Variations

symphoniques by Franck, and in 1888 succeeded Marmontel at the Conservatoire.

Diemer also produced many great musicians, including Marcel Dupre (1886-1971), E.

Robert Schmitz (1889-1949), Robert Casadesus (1899-1973), and Alfred Cortot

(1877-1962).

Marguerite Long was influential in the French piano world and was a dominant

force in promoting French music. She taught that in piano playing the whole body

should be involved and that pianists should develop strength and agility, just as runners

and dancers, who work to strengthen their legs and to make them flexible. She also

emphasized finger articulation and said scales should be practiced daily. Long stated that

awkward fingering interferes with gracefulness and beauty of tone, as well as phrasing in

the hand. She commented, "Ugly to the eye, ugly to the ear." Long always respected the

composer's own given fingerings and believed the correct hand position achieved the best

87 Ibid., 316.

88 Ibid., 316-17.

59

musical results.

Recognizing that the whole process of developing technique can be laborious and

very discouraging, Long stressed Liszt's advice for patience with oneself when it comes

to practicing. In practicing exercises, she suggested that students should always set the

ideal of beauty before them. In technical drills, she suggested omitting the pedal and

playing with depth of tone while avoiding undue fatigue. Long emphasized energetic

finger lift and release, encouraged freedom throughout the arm and shoulder, and advised

working regularly from one tempo to a slightly faster one, but always including slow

drill.89

In 1914, Long opened her own school in Paris, the Ecole Marguerite Long-

Jacques Thibaud. At this school and its branches in other cities, she supervised teaching

that was done mostly by her assistants, who were her former students. Her teaching

spread during the early 1950s and as many as five hundred young pianists in France were

estimated to be a "student of Marguerite Long." In 1943, she and Jacques Thibaud

founded the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Competition, which

attracted international pianists and violinists. Her publications include Aupiano avec

Debussy, Au piano avec Faure, Au piano avec Ravel (with Pierre Laumonier), and her

method, Lepiano.90

In 1919 Cortot helped to establish the Ecole Normale de Musique. As the most

important modern French pianist-musician-intellectual, Cortot's pianism had some

89 Ibid., 318-21

Charles Timbrell, French Pianism: An Historical Perspective, With a Foreword by Gaby Casadesus (White Plains, NY: Pro/Am Music Resources, Inc., 1992), 91-92.

60

German influence, though he championed French music and the works of Chopin, which

he edited with extensive commentary. His contribution to piano technique appeared in his

Rational Principles of Pianoforte Technique, which was published in 1928. Cortot had

doubts regarding the overwhelming amount of technical materials of the past, and he

developed his own technical material. His practice material was concise, comprehensive,

and entirely relevant to the standard concert literature. Cortot's approach can be divided

into five basic areas, including finger training, thumb passage in relation to scales and

arpeggios, double note and polyphonic mastery, the problem of extensions, and wrist and

chordal techniques.91

Debussy is undoubtly the most important twentieth-century Frenchman who

influenced modern French technique. As an Impressionistic composer, he opened new

paths for piano tone production. Debussy was irritated by the term "impressionism,"

however, because he saw himself as a musical descendant of the eighteenth-century

harpsichordists, who were concerned with perfection and logic. Original and unique

sonorities and textures characterize Debussy's music, and his treatment of keyboard

touch and pedal is very sensitive.92 His playing was mostly pianissimo and was

sometimes almost inaudible. Debussy's treatment of tonal control, his technique, and his

overall style were thoroughly French. He mingled sounds and overtones delicately.

Marguerite Long asserted,

Debussy was an incomparable pianist. How could you forget the suppleness, the caress, the depth of his touch! As he glided with such a penetrating softness over the keyboard, he kept close to it and obtained from it tones of an extraordinarily

91Gerig,318.

92 Ibid., 321-23.

61

expressive power. There we find the secret, the pianistic enigma of his music. There resides the special Debussy technique: this softness in the continuous pressure, and the color he obtained with this touch on the soft dynamic level alone. He played almost always in half tints, but with a full and intense sonority without any harshness in the attack, like Chopin . . . . The scale of his nuances went from pianississimo to forte without ever arriving at immoderate sonorities and without the subtlety of the harmonies ever being lost. 93

Debussy did not like to pin down particular fingerings. He stated,

To impose a fingering cannot logically adapt itself to the different formations of the hand. The absence of fingerings is an excellent exercise, it suppresses the spirit of contradiction which prompts us to prefer not to use the author's fingering, and verifies these everlasting words: "One is never better served than by one's self." 94

He also told his pupil Maurice Dumesnil, "play with more sensitiveness in the finger tips.

Play chords as if the keys were being attracted to your finger tips, and rose to your hand

as to a magnet."95

III. The Music of Maurice Ravel and Stylistic Characteristics of his Piano Music

Ravel was encouraged as a musician from childhood by his father, and he solved

musical problems quickly, easily adapting to the requirements of his teachers. Ravel

made music easily and naturally. His craftsmanship is the result of his industry and

diligence, but he was also a simple man who created music out of his subconscious.96

Ravel often emphasized craftsmanship over expressiveness, stating, "Conscience compels

us to turn ourselves into good craftsmen. My objective, therefore, is technical perfection.

Gerig, 322.

Ibid., 324.

Ibid.

Roland-Manuel, 109.

62

I can strive unceasingly to this end, since I am certain of being able to attain it."

Although he valued highly the craft of composition in his own works and in those

of others, Ravel did not ignore emotional involvement, which he regarded as the

expressive core of art. Ravel's views on craftsmanship were influenced by the writings of

the poet Edgar Allan Poe, whom he considered his third teacher, after Faure and Gedalge.

He was particularly drawn to Poe's practice of conceiving the totality of a work in his

head before writing it down, as well as Poe's emphasis on the process of composition

with deliberate, calculated, and logical planning. Poe's preoccupation with proportion,

brevity, and the goal of beauty and perfection also inspired Ravel's compositions. 98

At around 1900, Debussy was the dominant force in French music, while Ravel

struggled with a lack of confidence. Ravel's progress was slow, although this was the

period of composition of the nostalgic Sheherazade. Some expressed enthusiasm for the

Quartet, though it was regarded as showing a slight trace of Debussy's influence.

Miroirs, composed in 1905, marked the beginning of Ravel's second period.

During this time, Ravel produced many works, including Miroirs, Histoires naturelles,

Rapsodie espagnole, L 'Heure espagnole, Gaspard de la Nuit, and Daphnis et Chloe. The

musical characteristics of this period are flexibility of form within the structural outline

and richness in basic harmonies in keeping with a smooth and compact melodic line. Ma

mere I 'oye reflects a sophisticated harmonic language and childlike simplicity in its

melodic line. In Gaspard de la Nuit, Ravel displays technical virtuosity, and in the Valses

Orenstein, 38.

Kelly, 868.

63

nobles et sentimentales, thicker harmonies produce contrasts. Ravel created many

masterpieces during the second period, as he attempted to simplify his style and improve

his melodic lines.

The third compositional period begins in 1920 with La Valse. This period is

characterized by its spirit of feverish fury, contrasting with the serenity of the earlier

period. The fundamental stylistic characteristic of Ravel's music of this time lies in

melody. With the continuity of the melodic line, the charm of the phrase and the clarity of

design, the overall movement of the melody, with its unity and diversity, reveals the

profound greatness of Ravel as a composer. Traditionally, European melody is based

upon the diatonic principle. Ravel respected this fundamental principle, and for all of his

innovation and fantasy in composition, his melodic treatments were within the limits of

tonality.100

Ravel felt a natural attraction to Spain. M. Andre Suares observed that, "The

-dance influences all Ravel's music, just as it does that of the Spaniards and the

clavecinists." 10 Ravel was interested in dance traditions, both Western and non-Western,

and his music was inspired by and derived from various dance traditions. For example,

Pavane and Forlane are based upon French dances; Minuet, Waltz, and Passacaglia are

from Central European dances; Habanera, Bolero, and Malaguena are Spanish dances;

and Pantoum comes from Malaysian traditions.102 Ravel also thought that the symphony,

99 Roland-Manuel, 109-10.

100 Ibid., 111-12.

101 Ibid., 123.

102 Kelly, 873-74.

64

the sonata, and the various forms of chamber music were derived from the suite, which is

a collection of dances. 103

Ravel's use of form was shaped by the French clavecinists and their

contemporaries, as can be seen in the six pieces from the Le Tombeau de Couperin. For

example, the Forlane refers to Domenico Scarlatti, and the contemporary model for the

Rigaudon or Menuet would be Saint-Saens or Ravel himself, who composed Menuet

antique and the Sonatine, which contains a Menuet as its second movement. Le Tombeau

de Couperin is a delightful piece, which was orchestrated two years later for the Concerts

Pasdeloup. Every movement is strictly controlled in this piece, revealing Ravel's extreme

economy and simplicity. Translucence and variety of color permeate the whole work. In

the orchestra version, precision and virtuosity are also achieved.1

Ravel's compositional style demonstrates a combination of instrumental

imagination and compositional control. Ffis sense of craftsmanship was so great that, for

him, preparing the final score was more important than its performance. When his work

was performed, Ravel never tolerated any deviations from what he wrote in the score,

especially with regard to rhythmic accuracy.105

Though Ravel's piano music is often performed in a Romantic manner, with the

use oirubato and agogic accents, Ravel was insistent that performers adhere to the

details written in his score. He was not afraid to demand of Arturo Toscanini the correct

tempo in a performance of Bolero. Vlado Perlemuter, a pupil of Ravel, remembered his

103 Roland-Manuel, 123.

104 Ibid., 81-82.

105 Kirby, 46.

65

teacher advising, "Let nothing slip by either in the notes or, just as much, in its

interpretation." 106

Ravel wrote approximately sixty compositions, among which more than half are

instrumental: fifteen pieces and suites for the piano, eight chamber works, six orchestral

works, several ballets, and two piano concerti. The remaining compositions include

eighteen songs and song cycles with accompaniment for piano, chamber ensemble, or

orchestra; several settings of folk melodies; one work for unaccompanied mixed chorus;

and two operas. The two earliest compositions, Habanera and Menuet antique, were

written as student pieces when Ravel was twenty years old. His style was firmly set with

the completion of Jeux d'eau at the age of twenty-six. These early works show the

influence of dance rhythms, the music of Spain, archaic music, and contemporary

Impressionistic techniques. Other compositions reflect his interest in Basque music,

oriental exoticism, and American jazz. Ravel mentioned that, as a child, he was sensitive

to every kind of music. The truth of this remark is proven in the diversity in his art. 107

Andre Gedalge taught Ravel that melody is the essence of music and said,

"Whatever sauce you put around the melody is a matter of taste . . . . What is important

is the melodic line, and this doesn't vary." 108 One of the most characteristic aspects of

Ravel's music is its mixture of tonality and modality. Ravel frequently used the Dorian

mode, as in the beginning of the Sonata for Violin and Cello. The Phrygian mode appears

in his Spanish music, for example Rapsodie espagnole and L 'Heure espagnole. Ravel

106 Ibid., 52.

107 Orenstein, 130.

108 Ibid., 131.

66

also utilized the whole-tone and pentatonic scales, which he heard in the music performed

at the 1889 International Exposition. But Ravel's melodies are mostly diatonic and

feature sequential treatment or repetition, rather than motivic development.

Ravel's harmonic treatment features unresolved chords of the seventh and ninth,

complex harmonies over pedal points, and sonorities based upon the second and the

fourth. His harmonic language was novel and revolutionary for his time. He sometimes

used bitonality and atonality. Before World War I, Ravel's harmonic texture was

generally rich, revealing the close interrelationship between the melody and its

underlying harmony. However, after the war, his compositions had a more linear motion

with a stricter harmonic style. He used more diatonic, functional harmony with traditional

elements. In Ravel's earliest works, the major and minor seventh or the diminished

octave are frequently used, as in Jeax d'eau (E, G-sharp, B, D-sharp), Sheherazade (E-

flat, G-flat, B-flat, D-flat), or Miroirs (G-sharp, B, D, G). The lowered seventh step or the

,"blue" note reflects his postwar adaptations of jazz.110

As stated previously, dance is a prominent feature of Ravel's rhythmic writing.

The lively waltz, the graceful minuet, and the colorful rhythms of Basque and Spanish

music are used in his music, especially in Le Tombeau de Couperin, in which cheerful

Baroque dances are adapted.

Ravel frequently worked within traditional formal structures, such as A-B-A and

sonata-allegro, with some structural subtleties. His chamber music shows a classical

orientation, which may have derived from the works of Mozart, Mendelssohn, Faure, or

Ibid., 130-32.

67

Saint-Saens. Overall, Ravel's approach to melody, harmony, rhythm, and form shows

innovation within a solid framework of tradition.

The piano was a primary instrument in Ravel's art, and each new facet of his

compositional style first appeared in the piano music. For example, the sophisticated

harmonies and the music of Spain first appeared in Habanera, the dance rhythms and

archaic pastiche in Menuet antique, Ravel's own Impressionistic techniques in Jeux

d'eau, and the thinner textures of the postwar years in Le Tombeau de Couperin. In

addition, Ravel's first use of harsher outlines occurs in Valses nobles et sentimentales,

and his adaptation of jazz appears in L 'Enfant et les sortileges. Ravel's piano music was

inspired by the clarity and elegance of Scarlatti, Couperin, the French clavecinists,

Mozart, Chabrier, and Saint-Saens, and was informed by the color and virtuosity of

Chopin and Liszt.'11

Ravel's orchestral technique is the result of his long study, and influenced by the

^incessant questioning of performers, experimentation, and numerous rehearsals. Ravel's

scores demand an extension of an instrument's technical resources and range. He was

especially sensitive to rhythmic and coloristic subtleties in the percussion section.112

Ravel regarded orchestration as a task that requires distinct technical skills, and he was

always careful to make sure that each family of instruments worked in isolation as well as

in the complete ensemble.113

As a creative artist, Ravel was aware of his weaknesses and strengths, avoiding

111 Orenstein, 135-36.

112 Ibid., 137.

113 Kelly, 868.

68

the symphonic and theme-and-variations forms. He wrote neither for the organ nor for the

church.114 Ravel learned from the example of his predecessors, and his work shows a

delicate balance between imitation and influence on the one hand, and originality on the

other. He once said,

If you have nothing new to say, then you cannot do better, while waiting for the ultimate silence, than repeat what has been well said. If you do have something to say, that something will never be more clearly seen than in your unwitting infidelity to the model.115

Ravel declared that the influence of other composers' music on one's own is

inevitable and if a composer does not admit such influence, he should stop composing.

However, imitation was only part of the learning process, and originality was also

important to his thinking. While he admitted his debt to his immediate predecessors,

Ravel denied the allegations that the Pavane pour une infante difunte was excessively

influenced by Chabrier11 and that he was merely an imitator of Debussy.

Ravel's interests were not limited to nineteenth-century French music, but were

open to a wider European tradition. He expressed enthusiasm for the music of Mozart,

Weber, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Chopin, Bellini, Richard Strauss, and Puccini.

His interest in the past is reflected in such works as Menuet antique and Le Tombeau de

117

Couperin.

I14Orenstein, 139.

115 Roger Nichols, Ravel Remembered (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1987), 143.

116 Orenstein, 22.

117 Kelly, 869.

69

Ravel often distanced himself from others and tried to maintain emotional and

artistic control.118 His public image as a dandy made him look aloof. Ravel's biographers

note that he surrounded himself with decorative articles and machines and lived in an

environment where even the garden reflected his control over nature. Ravel often

expressed his wish to combine composition with the mechanized world of the factory.

Stravinsky's comment that Ravel was a "Swiss watchmaker" contains some truth in it.

Ravel used sustained and repeated notes to express rigidly patterned movement and to

depict clocks, bells, and water.

Ravel's progress as a composer was influenced by important events in his life and

his musical character developed early. His harmony was diatonic and his use of figured

bass in sketches shows his attachment to functional tonality. He often used the circle of

fifths and pedal point in the bass line to control tonal direction. Chords were extended,

and 9ths and 1 lths were used frequently to create richer textures. Ravel favored the

diminished octave, major 7ths, and parallel 4ths and 5ths to create an antique effect and

to evoke Asian sounds. The tritone was often used for coloristic purposes.1

Ravel's advocacy of the principles of economy and objectivity and his openness

to jazz and bitonality helped to secure his place at the forefront of modernism. He did not

have any composition pupils, but he encouraged and helped several musicians such as

Roland-Manuel, Delage, Manuel Rosenthal, and Ralph Vaughan Williams to develop

their own musical styles.120

Nichols, 180.

Sadie, 871-73.

Ibid., 875.

70

IV. Analysis and Interpretation of Le Tombeau de Couperin

Le Tombeau de Couperin is Ravel's principal neoclassical work and also his final

composition for solo piano. It was originally planned as a suite frangaise, and its

succession of movements is clearly associated with the French harpsichord suite of the

eighteenth century: Prelude, Fugue, Forlane, Rigaudon, Minuet, and Toccata. Ravel, as

well as Stravinsky, is credited with the initiation of the neoclassic movement after World

War I.122

In June 1917, Ravel was a guest at the home of Monsieur and Madame Fernand

Dreyfus at Lyons la-Foret, about sixty miles northwest of Paris. In this restful

environment, he completed Le Tombeau de Couperin, much of which had been written in

1914. The work was intended as an homage, not only to Couperin, but to the whole

seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French school of clavecinists. Each of the piano

suite's six pieces is dedicated to the memory of a fallen comrade on the field of battle.

The Rigaudon, for example, was dedicated to the composer's childhood friends Pierre

and Pascal Gaudin; the Prelude to Lieutenant Jacques Chariot, a cousin of Jacques

Durand, who had transcribed several of Ravel's works; and the Toccata to Captain Joseph

de Marliave, the husband of Marguerite Long.

The first performance ofLe Tombeau de Couperin took place in Paris in April of

1919. Though at the time Ravel was criticized a great deal for having written bright

music to honor dead friends, the recital was acknowledged with an exceptionally warm

ovation. Marguerite Long's interpretation of l e Tombeau de Couperin was greeted with

121 Kirby, 275.

122 Ibid., 46

71

enthusiasm, and the entire suite was encored. An orchestral transcription of the work was

completed in June 1919. 23

Le Tombeau de Couperin showcases Ravel's contemporary harmonic vocabulary

mixed with some Romantic elements, particularly in the Prelude and Toccata. The

prominent use of minor 7ths, especially in the refrain of the Forlane, is superimposed

onto eighteenth-century forms, rhythms, cadences, and ornamentation. Ravel transcribed

a Forlane from Couperin's Concerts royaux in the spring of 1914, and there are clear

musical parallels between the two pieces. The use of earlier composers' works as

inspiration was not new for Ravel: he also turned to eighteenth-century France for the

inspiration of his ballet Daphnis et Chloe.124

Four of the six movements of Le Tombeau de Couperin exist in an orchestral

version: Prelude, Forlane, Menuet, and Rigaudon. This orchestral suite was first

performed by Rhene-Baton, conducting the Pasdeloup Orchestra, on February 28, 1920.

Later in the same year, on November 8, the orchestral suite served as music for a ballet

produced by Rolf de Mare's Swedish Ballet at the Theatre des Champs-Ely sees,

conducted by D. E. Inghelbrecht. The orchestral suite is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2

clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, harp, and strings. The suite is also arranged for

piano four-hands and for two pianos.125

In the orchestral suite, the melodic material is largely divided between woodwinds

123 Orenstein, 75-76.

124 Kelly, 869.

125 Rollo H. Myers, Ravel: Life & Works (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1960), 171-73.

72

and strings, with the trumpet or horn providing color. Among the orchestral adjustments

are the additions of many mordents and harmonics that are not found in the piano version,

as well as some changes in harmony. In the orchestral version, the Menuet precedes the

1 Oft

Rigaudon, bringing the suite to a spirited conclusion.

Cortot has argued that this music achieves its definitive form only in Ravel's

orchestral score. Indeed, the orchestral score of the Forlane reveals more accurate

indications of breathing, articulation, and voicing in the added rests and shorter slurs. The

metronome indications were added by Marguerite Long after Ravel's death.

1. Prelude (Vif, 12/16)

The Prelude recalls the harpsichord works of Rameau, Couperin, and Scarlatti

with its clarity and liveliness. The first movement is in E-Dorian mode and is very clear

and light, without any sense of haste. The texture is thin and linear.

Ravel dictated very sparse pedaling for this movement and indicated that grace

notes be played on the beat, conforming to a Baroque aesthetic.128 The six sixteenth-note

motive in the right hand is made up of an eleventh chord on E, and the beginning note E

in the left hand creates a pedal-point effect (Fig. 22).

Ub Orenstein, 185-87.

127 Deborah Mawer, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ravel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 88.

Vlado Perlemuter and Helene Jourdan-Morhange, Ravel according to Ravel, trans. Frances Tanner, ed. Harold Taylor (London: Kahn & Averill, 1970), 68.

73

Vif [J.- 92]

Figure 22. Grace notes on the beat, mm. 1-2. (Fingerings are editorial.)

This movement is characterized by ornamentation and perpetual motion. The

harmonies are contemporary; Ravel frequently used ninth and eleventh chords. Here, they

occur in sweeping pianistic passages (Fig. 23).

Figure 23. Sweeping pianistic passages, mm. 81 -84.

The left hand motives should be clearly articulated. The chromatic descending bass line

adds musical excitement with its suspended notes and syncopation (Fig. 24). The mordent

occurs only in the right hand, and the longer note in both hands produces a translucent,

bell-like sonority (Fig. 25).

74

14

i^^H W*

PP 1

SB= jSraTilS ffr- frr li

Figure 24. Left-hand chromatic movement, m. 14.

JLJJ-

Figure 25. Ostinato bell-like sound, mm. 31-36.

The melody line resembles an oboe sound, which is clear and penetrating, with firm

fingertips to create a more lyrical, projected melody (Fig. 26).

Figure 26a. Piano version with oboe sound, mm. 21-23.

75

v

Figure 26b. Orchestral version scored for oboe, mm. 22-23.

The ending has a sweeping arpeggio passage on an E minor eleventh chord, with

dramatic crescendo and diminuendo. The pedal assists in the creation of the tremolo. The

pedal should not be lifted on the final chord, so that the diminuendo will fade out

gradually l29 (Fig. 27).

Figure 27. Final tremolo and closing, mm. 93-97.

Perlemuter, 69.

76

2. Fugue (Allegro moderate, 4/4)

This is the only fugue in all of Ravel's published works. Prior to writing this,

Ravel stvraied the fugue intensively, particularly those of Bach, and wrote several

exercises to ensure that this one should be a perfect example of the form.

The Fugue is in E-Dorian mode and has three voices. It has a traditional fugal

form, in which the answer begins on the dominant exactly imitating the subject. The first

voice starts on the subdominant. The two-note and three-note slurs are characteristic of

this fugue. The subject consists of four different pitches (A, G, B, E), which illustrates

Ravel's preference for economy of means. The subject recurs twenty-five times

throughout the piece. While the subject has syncopations and accents, the counter

subjects are characterized by dotted rhythms and triplets. (Fig. 28).

Figure 28. The fugal subject and answer, mm. 1-4.

The Fugue is concentrated and employs inversions and transpositions of the

subject. It concludes with a very concentrated stretto, in which each entry is introduced

130 Myers, 172.

very closely to the previous statement (Fig. 29).

77

Figure 29. Stretto, mm. 58-61.

Rhythmic accent characterizes this Fugue. Phrases are generally short, which

makes it difficult to create intensity in the phrasing. Rhythmic accent continues

throughout the piece and requires great independence of hands and fingers (Fig. 30).

Figure 30. Rhythmic accentuation in the phrase, mm. 50-52.

The lyrical Fugue employs a narrow melodic range, which creates an obscure,

impressionistic sound as the individual lines combine.

78

/

3. Forlane (Allegretto, 6/8)

The Forlane is a lyrical and delightful movement and is regarded as the

outstanding movement of the suite. The Forlane is derived from the Italian dance of the

same name, and it was a favorite of Venetian gondoliers. It was popular from the early

seventeenth century until the eighteenth century as an elegant dance of the French court.

It is a lively dance in compound duple meter (6/8 or 6/4) with dotted rhythms.131 The

ornamental style resembles the works of eighteenth-century harpsichord composers, and

its modern harmonies form the contrast to the formal character of the dance. When

compared to Couperin's Forlane, which Ravel transcribed, one can see that the texture,

rhythm, ornamentation, and structure of the two works are related; it is the melody and

harmony that places Ravel's Forlane in the twentieth century.133 Measures 1-8 can be

categorized as a ritornello that recurs after each episode. The melody opens with dotted

rhythms and leaps. The harmony has a contemporary sound with its use of chromaticism,

tritone, and augmented sixth chords. The phrase is symmetrical and forms a period with

the antecedent and consequent totaling about eight measures in length. These elements

appear in the melody throughout the piece (Fig. 31).

Don Michael Randel, ed., The New Harvard Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard Univeristy Press, 1986), 320.

132 Myers, 172.

Orenstein, 186.

79

A.lle<;ri-no[J-"'M]

Figure 31. Opening of the Forlane functioning as a ritornello, mm. 1-8.

Ravel gave specific instruction to his pupils regarding articulation, and he was

known to demand the performer to play his music precisely as it is written. For example,

hcWicated that the last eighth note in the first measure was not to be played too

Heavily Fig. 32).I34

Allegretto U-96]

Figure 32. Articulation of the first motive in the Forlane, m. 1.

Perlemuter, 71.

80

In the Forlane, the second beat usually carries the accent, which makes the first

beat sound like an upbeat, and creates rhythmic ambiguity throughout the piece.

(Fig. 33)

Figure 33. Accentuation on the second beat, mm. 10-12.

Ravel insisted that the performer take all the repeats, and demanded that the grace

notes be played on the beat.135 There are three episodes in the Forlane, each of which

alternates with a ritornello-like passage (A-B-A-C-A-D-Coda). The first episode has a

rounded binary form (AABA). The first section is in the key of E minor, though the

second section has a rather free tonality. The ornamentations in the right hand should be

played on the beat (Fig. 34).

5 Ibid., 72.

81

Figure 34. First episode (B), mm. 25-34.

The second episode is in a rounded binary form in G-Lydian mode. Here, the

rhythmic motive is comprised of a quarter note - eighth note pattern. In the B section, the

left hand has ornamentations and a pedal point, while the right hand has a stepwise

descending melodic line. (Fig. 35)

Figure 35. Descending melodic line in the second episode (C), mm. 79-88.

The third episode is more chordal than the other episodes, and it recalls the

82

opening theme, though the articulation is now detached and there is much more rhythmic

accentuation. The episode is in binary form in the key of E major. The second section

contains chromatic chordal progressions in the left hand. Quartal, quintal, and tertian

chords are used here. Pedal points occur in both hands (Fig. 36).

124 [51.

ggpf# 4 13] \ 1 l m

5 4 3 " ' 2 pi a

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si j> v v t * : | — £ * f >

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Figure 36. Third episode (D), mm. 124-27.

The coda opens with grace-note patterns, recalling the sound of a music box

(Fig. 37).

Figure 37. Music box-like phrase in the Forlane, mm. 138-41.

The coda includes two statements of a melodic phrase, with the second statement

83

echoing the first. No ritard should be taken.136 Quartal and quintal harmonies, as well as

augmented sixth chords are used (Fig. 38).

i46 m^&nr^N $k±t = T ttr^ m tf=ht tr

s ^

s ^it

p^fp ^ ^

/.w

£ iH i S L J £ 5 3 ist

P" P ^ v* * -» r -x =*£

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^ ^ \gj W

*yiFw a fe-^fr

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s ^a ^1? r~lf 4 M v it y F'l T—rr

Figure 38. Two similar phrases with echo effect, mm. 146-56.

The movement ends with several tonic chords with the added major seventh. A

mordent falls on the final tonic chord (Fig. 39).

Perlemuter, 73.

84

158

H J J- £ .17 7]

17. 71 J) .' S u n * rti lf t t l i

r*:

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Figure 39. The ending in E minor, mm. 158-62.

4. Rigaudon (Assez vif, 2/4)

The rigaudon is derived from a Baroque dance characterized by lively movement

in duple meter. Typically it has a quarter-note upbeat with four-measure phrases in 2/2.

The dance is in binary form, with phrases usually starting with a half note. The rigaudon

is faster than a gavotte. It gained popularity in the French court after Lully's death in

1687, and it gradually spread to Germany and England. The rigaudon frequently appeared

in Rameau's operas and was often composed for instrumental ensembles or harpsichord.

Simplicity of-fliythm and phrasing characterizes the rigaudon.137

Unlike the traditional dance, Ravel's Rigaudon starts on the downbeat, and is

bright and vigorous. Though it is diatonic in the beginning, the Rigaudon becomes more

chromatic in the middle of the movement. The melodic line should stand out discreetly

from the continuous rhythm of the Rigaudon. The opening, with its rapid crossing of the

hands, recalls the technique of the clavecinists. Traditionally, the performer omits the

repetitions of the opening section (Fig. 40) 138

137 Randel, 708.

138 Orenstein, 186.

85

Aasez vif [ J - I2()]

Figure 40. Opening of the movement, mm. 1-4.

The form of the Rigaudon is ABA. It opens in C major. The A section is in binary

form; the first section is diatonic, while the second section is chromatic. Though the

rhythm is continuous, the sonority should vary within the piece. In measures 9-15, Ravel

indicates a brassy sound, and assigned the passage to trumpets in the orchestration of this

section (Fig. 41). m

Figure 41. Imitation of brass instruments, mm. 6-15.

139 Ibid., 74.

86

In the middle section, the key shifts to C minor and the tempo slows. Here, the

pianist must create a mysterious, thin sonority, in a distant-sounding pianissimo (Fig. 42).

There is a pedal-point effect in both hands in Minuet section. The broken-chord passage

in the bass incorporates ninth and thirteenth chords. In the second half of the middle

section, the tonality returns to C major.140

37 Moins vif

\»\ J J<Ej PPg^ m .

PP

fe A W * * - *

* •*-£a. [,v/m.]

V -*•

Figure 42. Middle section in C minor, mm. 37-41.

The music box character is one of the most important elements of the piece. The

bass line, especially, features a continuous figure reminiscent of music boxes (Fig. 43).

119 teM

$mi 3

Figure 43. Music-box element, mm. 119-20.

140 Perlemuter, 74.

87

In the Rigaudon, as well as other movements of Le Tombeau, the pedal should be

used with great skill and with consideration for both the rhythmic and the harmonic

aspects of the piece. The middle section requires great expression of the inner voice. The

pianist should not slow down at the end of this episode, though a certain amount of

flexibility is needed to allow for the last note to die away.

5. Menuet (Allegro moderato, 3/4)

The minuet was popular especially between 1650 and 1800. The dance typically

has a ternary form with regular four-measure phrases. The melody is usually simple and

has no elaboration or counterpoint. Hemiola rhythm commonly appears with its small,

quick dance steps. The French menuet is usually slower than other Baroque instrumental

dances. The middle section usually is in rounded binary form, and in the Baroque minuet,

the middle section is often called a trio, written in a contrasting key and texture.142

With the ornaments in the right hand and employing a pedal-point effect in the

left hand, Ravel's Menuet is slow and lyrical. Overall, the sound is relatively light, and

grace notes always fall on the beat. The first theme is in the key of G major, and the first

eight measures form an antecedent and consequent phrase structure (Fig. 44).

41 Perlemuter, 75.

42 Randel, 497.

88

A l l e g r o m o d e r a t e J=92

Figure 44. First theme starting in the key of G, mm. 1-8.

A transition to the mediant key of B minor occurs in the second theme. A return

to G major marks a new sub-section, resulting in a binary form. The second theme is

more melodic and more expressive than the first theme with a bell-like pedal point in the

left hand (Fig. 45).

Figure 45. Second theme, mm. 9-12.

89

The middle section in this Menuet is a Musette, which is a popular French dance

in 3/4 time. The name Musette comes from an instrument that is similar to a bigpipe. The

musette is in G-Dorian mode and features parallel chords and a series of root position

chords with a pedal point, which has the effect of creating a bell-like sonority. Though

the tempo does not slow, the result is a feeling of breadth (Fig. 46).

33

PP

I A .

s i i 5fe

1 Corde

Figure 46. Bell-like pedal point in the Musette, mm. 33-36.

The recapitulation is more elaborate and on a larger scale than the preceding

sections. The recapitulation brings back the antecedent-consequent form of the opening

theme, while the left hand carries the melody of the Musette (Fig. 47).

Figure 47. Recapitulation of the first theme, mm. 73-76.

90

The second theme in the recapitulation starts with an unexpected D-sharp minor

chord (Fig. 48).

[3 Cordcsl

1 ^ ,„ftj. ^ A m m

rf^f -j-«f~j=

Figure 48. The second theme in the recapitulation, mm. 81-88.

The coda is calmly expressive, without a change of the tempo. The left hand

broken chords, which are triadic, accompany the right hand melody. Ravel indicates that

the three chords in measures 118-20 should be played strictly in time with an articulation

and use of pedal that produce a crystalline effect.143

Perlemuter, 77-78.

91

6. Toccata (Vif, 2/4)

Toccatas first appeared in 1536 in a Milanese anthology. There they are codas to

sets of lute dances. At the end of the sixteenth century, Venetian organists established

the form of the toccata, and it quickly became one of the most important keyboard

genres. The principal elements of toccata style are quasi-improvisatory harmonies,

sweeping scales, and broken chord figurations that often range over the entire instrument.

In the early Baroque period, the toccata reached its first peak with Frescobaldi, whose

toccatas are characterized by contrast in figuration, meter, tempo, and texture, as well as

dramatic harmonic language and brilliant virtuosity.

Ravel's Toccata has a quasi sonata-allegro form, though not in the traditional

way, with its freer key and formal structure. The Toccata starts in E-Dorian mode, but it

moves freely to G major, B-flat major, and so on. It demands dazzling piano technique,

and despite all the technical difficulties, the melodic line should always be clear. The

texture is thin and light (Fig. 49).

Vif[J-l44]

Figure 49. The opening of the Toccata, mm. 1-4.

Randel, 859.

92

Ravel indicated that the Toccata is to be played at an extreme speed, though the

less lively Unpen moins vz/section (Fig. 50) is to be played expressively and with a

sustained sound, though without dragging. It is in B-Aeolian mode and it returns to the

original tempo at measure 70. This section comprises the second theme of the

exposition.145

Figure 50. Slower Unpeu moins vz/section, mm. 57-59.

A new theme is introduced in the development section (mm. 94-121) in the left

hand. The development section expands the harmony with seventh chords, octave

passages, and parallel chords, and it demands more dramatic technical virtuosity. In the

recapitulation section, a sustained melody of half notes and quarter notes in the right hand

often alternates with the themes from the exposition and the development (Fig. 51).

145 Ibid.

93

164

f-f II- rfl^

z&H=& ^^^S

B^gf

fp E ^ ^ l * ^

-p i t . i» H P ^

^-it—°^¥tm

* *

MA'

tttt K: EC m ==s ^

"W T*r-*i

Figure 51. Alternating themes in the recapitulation, mm. 159-72.

Ravel used many alternating chords in the Toccata and he was very fond of the

dialogue between voices. The performer must avoid sacrificing clarity for speed. Ravel

indicated that the rhythm of the Toccata should remain clear and detached from the

intense and expressive melodic line (Fig. 52).I46

Perlemuter, 79.

94

/«

)— ^-"BXT-j u — , -] . =j^dy_J..jLT#-

- j j » . . . .

^ = 3

w

—ft -f-- • = = = 3 i = ^ ^ z

r

- ^ ====5,

^

p

«

"]"•]•-& ' ~ ' " i. J

- H »

febr I -

E=*=fc I.I O.rile

1.1'J

eg i J? mm *=pp^ ^ w^p? nqF==fcS S^

Figure 52. Rhythmic Toccata with expressive melodic line, mm. 154-63.

When the themes recur, they appear with augmented rhythms and chromatic

chords. Ravel indicated that the pianist is to play it a little slower in order to allow the

accents to be heard, and then gradually resume playing at the initial tempo (Fig. 53). 147

an dehors

I Corclc

Figure 53. Repeat of the first episode, mm. 188-92.

147 Ibid.

CONCLUSION

Both Copland and Ravel were accomplished pianists and composed a

considerable number of piano works, as well as orchestral and vocal music. In the

twentieth century, there were frequent cultural and musical exchanges between Europe

and America, which influenced and contributed to the musical development of both

cultures. American classical music found its base in the European, especially German,

classical music system. Nadia Boulanger was a significant teacher who taught many

notable American composers. Conversely, many European composers travelled to

America and were influenced by the jazz music of America.

The Piano Sonata is one of the most significant works of Aaron Copland for piano

along with the Piano Variations (1930) and Piano Fantasy (1957). Copland's Sonata is

influenced by jazz elements; thus the texture is thin and the rhythms are predominantly

syncopated. The Piano Sonata is placed between the Piano Variations, which is dissonant

and mostly atonal, and the Piano Fantasy, which is twelve-tone and his longest piano

work. The Piano Sonata is least performed among the three major piano works, and is

relatively neglected compared to the Lincoln Portrait and ballets Rodeo and Billy the Kid,

which Copland wrote during the same time. The Piano Sonata is not texturally thick and

grandiose but it still displays Copland's reflective tendencies. This Piano Sonata deserves

to be heard as often as the Piano Variation and Piano Fantasy.

Ravel paid homage to Francois Couperin, who was known for establishing a

distinctively French keyboard style. Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin reflects his neo-

classic aesthetic influenced by both the Baroque suite and clavecinist style. This piece

95

96

had a deeper personal significance for Ravel, who dedicated each movement to a friend

who died during World War I. During this time, Ravel also lost his mother with whom

he had the closest and deepest relationship, and he was suffering with his own

deteriorating health. It is the only significant work of Ravel written during this difficult

time. Even though this piece is based on dance movements, it expresses the mixed

feelings of melancholy and sadness as well as of lightness and passion.

97

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99

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100

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101

6-12.

Northcott, Bayan. "Notes on Copland." Musical Times 122 (1980): 686-89.

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Starr, Lawrence. "Copland's Style." Perspectives of New Music 19 (1980-81): 68-89.

Young, Douglas. "The Piano Music of Aaron Copland." Piano Quarterly no. I l l (1980): 6-12