'Tombeaux' by Ravel and Daugherty

Synopsis

Maurice Ravel’s orchestral suite Le Tombeau de Couperin was premiered in Paris on this day in 1920. It had started out as a suite of solo piano pieces, intended as a tribute to great French Baroque composer François Couperin — or, as Ravel wrote, “not so much to Couperin himself, as to 18th-century French music in general.”

Although the French word “tombeau” translates literally as “tomb,” it also signifies a musical piece paying tribute to a past master, in the English sense of “in memoriam.” In that spirit, Ravel dedicated each movement of his suite to friends of his killed during World War I.

Although the “tombeau” as a musical form has been associated almost exclusively with French composers, one contemporary American composer has used the form as well, albeit with more wickedly satirical intent. Michael Daugherty’s Tombeau de Liberace jokingly references the pianist and showman, a kitschy icon of 20th century American pop culture.

Michael Daugherty said, “Starting from the vernacular idiom, I have composed Le Tombeau de Liberace as a meditation on the American sublime: a lexicon of forbidden music. It is a piano concertino in four movements, each creating a distinct Liberace atmosphere.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Le Tombeau de Couperin; St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Hugh Wolff, conductor; Teldec 74006

On This Day

Births

• 1876 - American composer John Alden Carpenter, in Park Ridge, Illinois

Premieres

• 1688 - M.A. Charpentier: opera David et Jonathas, in Paris

• 1728 - Handel: opera Siroe, Re di Persia (Julian date: Feb. 17)

• 1862 - Gounod: opera La Reine de Saba (The Queen of Sheba), in Paris

• 1888 - Tchaikovsky: Pezzo Capriccioso for cello and orchestra, in Paris

• 1898 - Kalinnikov: Symphony No. 2 (Gregorian date: Mar. 12)

• 1904 - d’Indy: Symphony No. 2 in Paris

• 1912 - Nielsen: Symphony No. 3 (Sinfonia Espansiva) and Violin Concerto (with soloist Emil Telmányi), in Copenhagen, with the composer conducting

• 1920 - Ravel: orchestral suite Le Tombeau de Couperin, at a Pasdeloup Concert in Paris

• 1929 - Pizzetti: Concerto dell’estate (Summer Concerto) by the New York Philharmonic, Arturo Toscanini conducting

• 1936 - Roy Harris: Symphony No. 2, by the Boston Symphony and Prelude and Fugue for strings by the Philadelphia Orchestra

• 1940 - Cowell: Old American Country Set, by the Indianapolis Symphony, Fabien Sevitzky conducting

• 1976 - Ralph Shapey: oratorio Praise in Chicago

• 1991 - John Harbison: Symphony No. 3, by the Baltimore Symphony, David Zinman conducting

• 1994 - George Tsontakis: Winter Lightning (No. 4 of Four Symphonic Quartets after poems by T.S. Eliot), by the Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz conducting

Others

• 1739 - London music publisher John Walsh the younger issues Handel’s Trio Sonatas (Gregorian date: Mar. 11)

• 1874 - American premiere of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, at New York’s Academy of Music, by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra. Thomas also introduced this concerto to Cincinnati (May 19, 1882) and Chicago (Feb. 5, 1892).

• 1882 - The Royal College of Music is founded in London.