Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was an artist of the most refined genius and an original in every aspect of composition. As an orchestrator he was unequalled, as can be seen in such works as the ballet Daphnis et Chloe and the popular Bolero. His harmonic language was tonal although he extended this language with the use of ninth, 11th, and 13th chords, which gave his pieces a distinctive cool French sensuality. Ravel was also an excellent pianist and his compositions for piano are innovative in the highest degree.
Ravel was a classicist as evidenced in the Baroque forms of Le tombeau de Couperin (1919), a suite that consists of six movements, each one dedicated to the memory of a victim of the First World War, a war Ravel participated in as an ambulance driver.
Camille Saint-Saens, an incredibly gifted composer, pianist, organist, and writer, developed a distinctly French style of composing that emphasized clarity, order, and craftsmanship. His gifts put him in contact. with the greatest composers of the day including Rossini, Gounod, Liszt, and Berlioz.
A defender of Wagner and new music when he was young, Saint-Saens, who was a conservative classicist, was unable to come to terms with the revolutionary music that ushered in the 20th century. He was an extremely prolific composer and wrote his popular Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor (1868) in just 17 days. It contains all of his best qualities. It is said that Richard Strauss, the famous German composer, kept a score of this concerto on his bed table so that he could continually reacquaint himself with Saint-Saens' clarity of thought and brilliant orchestration.
Hector Berlioz's (1803-1869), Romeo et Juliette (1839) is a multi-movement work that he subtitled "Dramatic Symphony" and is one of Romantic music's great works of art.
After receiving the score that he had commissioned from Berlioz entitled Harold en Italie, the renowned violinist Paganini gave Berlioz a gift of 20,000 Francs. The gift enabled Berlioz to compose Romeo et Juliette without financial worry for nearly a whole year. The end result is an amazing programmatic fresco that includes a large orchestra, soloists, and chorus. These musical forces are arranged in various and subtle ways in order to dramatize different aspects of Shakespeare's play. This great work shows the French composer at his most inventive and reveals the distinctive Berliozian style that he himself explained this way: "The prevailing qualities of my music are passionate expressiveness, inner fire, rhythmic drive, and unexpectedness."
Please go to hear the Bilkent Symphony play this incredible work. Because of its unusual structure and the forces needed to perform it, it is rarely heard in concert, yet it is one of the great creations of the 19th century.
Program for Tuesday, March 23
Conductor Alain Paris,
Piano, Jean-Philippe Collard
M. Ravel: "Le tombeau de Couperin" suite.
C. Saint-Saens: G Minor Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 22.
H. Berlioz: Romeo and Juliet Dramatic Symphony. Op. 17.
Faculty of Music and Performing Arts Auditorium, 9 p.m.
For more information and reservations, call 266-4382.
