Ravel Studies.

Clifton, Keith E.

Ravel Studies. Edited by Deborah Mawer. (Cambridge Composer Studies.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. [xii, 220 p. ISBN 9780521886970. $70.] Music: examples, photographs, bibliography, index.

The music of Maurice Ravel seems to be everywhere these days. Excerpts from the String Quartet and Bolero accompany television commercials for ancestry.com and Burger King, his chamber works (chiefly the 1914 Trio) formed the soundtrack for the French art film Un coeur en hiver, and more than 5000 separate Ravel clips are available for instant viewing on YouTube. Gradually emerging from Debussy's shadow to assume his rightful place in the pantheon of modern French composers, Ravel's rise in the popular imagination is accompanied by a proliferation of high-quality scholarship in the wake of the indispensible Cambridge Companion to Ravel (edited by Deborah Mawer [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000], reviewed in Notes 58, no. 3 [March 2002]: 590-93). Several new monographs and scholarly editions promise to expand further our understanding of the composer and his music (see, for example. Unmasking Ravel: New Perspectives on the Music, edited by Peter Kaminsky [Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2011]; Roger Nichols, Ravel: A Life [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011]; Michael J. Puri, Ravel the Decadent: Memory, Sublimation, and Desire [Oxford: Oxford University Press, in press]; and new Urtext editions of the piano music edited by Roger Nichols for Edition Peters).

As with the earlier Cambridge Companion, Mawer proves a discriminating editor, this time of a collection focused on targeted aspects of Ravel's achievement. With topics ranging from Ravers connections to musical and literary icons through his complex relationship with American popular jazz and the tragic circumstances of his final years, there is something in these nine dense essays to appeal to most Ravel devotees. Steven Huebner begins by examining the "eyebrow-raising" (p. 10) frequency of references to perfection in critical discourse surrounding Ravel's music, especially during his lifetime. Building on the composer's 1928 comment that "my goal is technical perfection" (p. 26), he traces the concept from Aristotle through eighteenth-century German philosophers including Kant and Alexander Baum-garten, concluding that Ravel's quest provides a notable point of contrast with contemporaries Debussy and D'Indy. While Huebner provides a lucid summary, I wished for deeper connections to the music, especially concerning Ravel's adoration of Mozart--whom he once described as "the most perfect of all" (p. 27)--and how this may have influenced selected compositions.

The complex genesis of Ravel's second opera L'enfant el les sortileges and his multi-faceted relationship with librettist Colette is the subject of a revealing chapter by Emily Kilpatrick. Deftly correcting several misconceptions regarding their work on the opera, she argues convincingly that the two viewed themselves as genuine collaborators even though they worked mostly independently (photographs of Alphonse Visconti's set designs for the original 1925 production lend welcome support to her commentary). Kilpatrick also connects Ravel's text setting in Enfant to his early choral work Trois Chansons, demonstrating how both contain imaginative examples of "onomatopoeic soundscapes" (p. 44).

In "Memory, Pastiche, and Aestheticism in Ravel and Proust," Michael J. Puri ties Marcel Proust's fascination with memory and the moment hienheureux (felicitous moment) to selected moments in Ravel's music. Although no record of any interaction survives, the two shared several personality traits, not to mention Proust's brief reference to Ravel's music in volume 3 of A hi recherche du temps perdu. Since both prized the imagination and "shared an interest in pastiche" (p- 60), Puri reveals congruences between the introduction to Daphnis et Chloe and the famous "madeleine" scene in Recherche (he also uncovers parallels between Bordodin's Prince [gar And the piano work A la manme de ... Borodine). Puri's intriguing ideas--presented here in succinct form--will no doubt be explored in greater depth in his forthcoming hook.

Ravel's ostensibly nonexistent romantic life remains to this day a puzzling enigma. Since he never married and carefully guarded his privacy, several interpretations have been advanced, including the possibility that he may have been asexual or even homosexual. Building on his previous work on this topic (see "Ravel's Way," in Queer Episodes in Music and Modem Identity, ed. Sophie Fuller and Lloyd Whitesell [Urbana: University of Illinois Press], 49-78), Whitesell uncovers strategies of evasion in four works that may represent musical expressions of Ravel's latent sexual impulses. After reminding us that the concepts of "dandy" and "bachelor-artist"--both applicable to Ravel--were sometimes equated with male homosexuality in fin-de-siecle France, Whitesell reads "La flute enchantee" from Sheherazade as a "scene of thwarted desire" (p. 80) and the "abortive tonal progressions" in "Ondine" from Gaspard de la nuit as examples of "naked vulnerability1' (p. 84). I found WhiteseH's arguments more convincing when applied to Tristan KJingsor's sensual texts than Ravel's musical response, but he provides compelling evidence for how the composer's "pose of indifference" (p. 89) may reveal deeper meanings.

Two related chapters follow, grouped under the collective subtitle "Crossing Borders." Nicholas Gebhardt's meticulous discussion of European artists who undertook American tours in the nineteenth century--including Anton Rubinstein and Hans von Bulow--reveals important precursors to Ravel's 1928 visit, which included more than thirty concert appearances in twenty-five cities and extensive press coverage. Gcbhardt attributes much of the tour's success to the music society Pro Musica and its promoter E. Robert Schmitz. While the seminal role of this group in promoting modern music merits closer study, I wish that Gebhardt had condensed the background material to allow space for particulars regarding the tour itself.

Deborah Mawer's wide-ranging essay, displaying an admirable balance between history and analysis, explores the tenuous relationship between Ravel's jazz-inspired works and authentic American examples. Mirroring Ravel's own comments in a 1928 article for Musical Digest titled "Take Jazz Seriously!," Mawer concludes that Ravel's "French-accented and personalized" (p. 114) application of jazz elements lacked the firsthand experience that characterized other composers (above all Milhaud). Analytical examples, presented in complex but readable detail, include the Piano Concerto in G, L'enfant, and the "Blues" movement from the Sonata for Violin and Piano. The likely influence of Gershwin on the latter work is made clear via Ravel's use of dotted rhythms reminicent of "The Man I Love" and other popular tunes. She further argues for a resemblance between Ravel's "Blues" theme and Gershwin's "Summertime" composed a decade later.

In "Encountering La valse" David Epstein considers the theatricality of one of Ravel's greatest orchestral achievements, presenting the score as a metaphor for "the lost world of prewar culture" (p. 151). The fact that the author did not live to finish the chapter--Mawer completed it based on draft material--may explain the tendency to repeat key points and an occasional lack of focus. The commentary is valuable nonetheless, especially Epstein's critique of the "Pressez" indication that appears at the work's climax. He chides conductors who take this final section too quickly, thus destroying the inherent drama of a work that "carries within it the seeds of its own destruction" (p. 152). Epstein's brief survey of La valse recordings from 1958 to 1990 would have been more useful if he had examined the merits and shortcomings of specific readings and expanded the discussion to more recent versions.

Dancer and scholar Stephanie Jordan's chapter on "choreomusical" (p. 165) uses of Ravel's non-balletic scores provides a welcome contrast to the other essays. Focusing on British choreographer Richard Alston--with several references to Balan-chine's 1975 setting of the Sonatina--she demonstrates that "even Ravel's non-dance music can be dance" (p. 186). With Shimmer, employing selections from the Sonatina and Miroirs, Alston's goals are best realized. Although it can be challenging to fully grasp Jordan's choreographical narrative without watching actual dancers perform, she does an admirable job of showcasing connections between Ravel's music and Alston's steps, accents, hand gestures, and coordination between partners.

Ravel Studies concludes with physician/ musicologist Erik Baeck's informative and sobering chapter on the composer's last years. Characterizing Ravel as "frail" and prone to "psychological vulnerability" (p. 188), he summarizes various medical theories advanced to explain his demise--ranging from Alzheimer's to Pick's disease--before settling on "one of the so called non-Al/.heimer tauopathies" (p. 208). Baeck provides valuable context for this period, reminding us that residual harm from a 1932 taxi accident was clearly more serious than Ravel acknowledged. Despite a tendency to overuse complex medical jargon beyond the scope of the book's target audience, Baeck acknowledges the human toll of Ravel's declining faculties by comparing the lucid manuscript of the Concerto for the Left Hand with a fragmented 1934 letter of eight lines that took the composer more than a week to complete. Fixing the specific date of Ravel's final brain surgery to 17 December 1937, Baeck compares him to other artists with similar disorders, including Nietzsche and Hugo Wolf. What emerges most poignantly, however, is the sudden loss of creative power of one of Europe's greatest composers, barely into his sixties, at a time when, by his own admission, he had "still everything to say" (p. 187).

A fitting sequel to its predecessor and a welcome addition to the general literature on modern music. Ravel Studies keenly demonstrates that the composer's slender output--just under sixty major works--includes works of trenchant beauty and undeniable technical prowess that still merit close examination. The essays provide a convenient sampling of cutting-edge Ravel scholarship, with an overall purpose more eclectic than comprehensive. Ideally, the book is best suited to chose with prior knowledge of Ravel's life and works, not to mention ready access to scores, since only about half the essays include music examples. While I am reticent to fully concur with Mawer's premise that Ravel Studies "is intended to be readable by interested undergraduates, concertgoers, and general enthusiasts of French music" (p. 8), there are essays within that will appeal to each of those groups. More than seventy years after his death, Ravel's music and legacy endures, supported by divergent references in popular culture and fresh scholarly insights this collection epitomizes so well.

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KEITH E. CLIFTON

Central Michigan University