Ravel plays 'guess who' in Paris

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1911, the Independent Music Society of Paris sponsored an anonymous concert at which the audience was invited to guess the composers of a number of pieces presented without attribution.

Professional music critics were also in attendance, although they prudently refused to reveal their guesses, fearing their professional reputations might suffer as a result. In the audience was the French composer Maurice Ravel, who had agreed to let some of his new piano pieces be performed as part of the experiment.

“The title Valses nobles et Sentimentales is a sufficient indication that my intention was to compose a chain of waltzes following the example of Schubert,” Ravel wrote. “They were performed for the first time, amidst protests and booing, at this concert.”

Even more droll, he recalled, were the reactions of some his most ardent admirers, who didn't know any of his own music would be played. They jeered at his waltzes, calling them “ridiculous” and ventured the guess the composer must be either Satie or Kodaly. Ravel accepted their comments in stoic silence.

The audience proved more astute than Ravel’s friends, however. “The paternity of the waltzes was correctly attributed to me, but by a weak majority,” he recalled.

Music Played in Today's Program

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Valses Nobles et Sentimentales; Minnesota Orchestra; Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, conductor; Analogue 007

On This Day

Births

• 1740 - Italian composer Giovanni Paisiello, in Roccaforzata, near Taranto

• 1814 - German pianist and composer Adolph von Henselt, in Schwabach, Bavaria

Deaths

• 1707 - German organist and composer Dietrich Buxtehunde, 70, in Lübeck

• 1770 - (on May 9 or 10) English composer, conductor and writer on music Charles Avison, 61, in Newcastle upon Tyne

• 1791 - American statesman and songwriter Francis Hopkinson, 53, in Philadelphia. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and dedicated a book of his songs to George Washington.

• 1799 - French composer Claude Balbastre, 72, in Paris

Premieres

• 1812 - Rossini’s opera La Scala di Seta (The Silken Ladder), in Venice

• 1868 - Bruckner: Symphony No. 1, in Linz, composer conducting

• 1893 - Rachmaninoff: opera Aleko, in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theater (Julian date: April 27)

• 1924 - R. Strauss: ballet Schlagobers (Whipped Cream), in Vienna

• 1940 - The film Our Town opens in Hollywood at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. The film was based on the play of the same name by Thorton Wilder, and featured a film score by Aaron Copland. Copland arranged a suite of music from his film score, which premiered on CBS Radio on June 9, 1940. A revised version of the suite was given its first public performance by the Boston Pops conducted by Leonard Bernstein on May 7, 1944.

• 1981 - Christopher Rouse: The Infernal Machine for orchestra (Movement II of Rouse’s Phantasmata), at the Evian Festival, France, by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, Gustav Meier conducting

• 1986 - Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Concerto Grosso (after Handel’s Sonata in D), by the Handel Festival Orchestra of Washington, Stephen Simon conducting

• 1988 - Bernstein: Arias and Barcarolles, at Equitable Center Auditorium in New York City, by vocalists Louise Edeiken, JoyceCastle, John Brandstetter, and Mordechai Kaston, with the composer and Michael Tilson Thomas at the piano. An orchestrated version of this work prepared by Bright Sheng premiered on September 22, 1989, at the Tilles Center of Long Island University with the New York Chamber Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz and featuring vocalists Susan Graham and Kurt Ollmann.

• 1990 - John Harbison: Words from Patterson (to texts by William Carlos Williams), at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., with baritone William Sharp and the members of the New Jersey Chamber Music Society

• 1998 - John Tavener: Wake Up and Die, for solo cello and orchestral cello section, at the Beauvais Cello Festival in Beavais, France

• 1999 - Zwillich: Upbeat! by National Symphony, Anthony Aibel conducting

Others

• 1863 - American premiere of Berlioz’ Harold in Italy, by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra in New York