Ravel's Harmony

Author(s): Alfredo Casella

Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 67, No. 996 (Feb. 1, 1926), pp. 124-127
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/912946
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124 THE MUSICAL TIMES-FEBRUARY I 1926

'Queen of Song,' or 'Colossus of workthe Keyboard,'

for music. Able to count on halls crowded
is of any value from the box-office with point
devoteesofready
viewto eat
? out of her hand, she
It is more likely to be a drawback, could for
have there arehundreds of fine songs.
popularised
not a few of us who, resenting the dragging
Instead she took thedown
easy line and popularised a
of the musical profession by such methods of handful of bad ones. And now she says 'It is sad.'
True; but the cause for sadness is other than
advertising, resolutely stay away from recitals given
by self-styled 'Kings' and 'Queens.' No other the one she has in mind. However, better late
branch of art is degraded in this way. We do notthan never. The Dame thinks it is time her
find Sybil Thorndike announced as 'Britain's audiences were weaned from 'Good-bye' and the
Queen of Tragedy,' or Seymour Hicks as 'Jewel Song'; and her farewell tour will give her
' England's Comedy King.' They would gain a chance of starting the process at once. Will she
nothing in appreciation from such announcements,
take the strong line, and, for the first time in her
career, be 'deaf to appeals for their favourite
and they would certainly lose a good deal of prestige.
There are thousands of musicians no less jealoussongs '? As this 'farewell tour' is not the first of
than painters and actors for the honour of theira series, but a really truly farewell, it is the Dame's
last chance. What will she do with it ?
profession, and I suggest to Dame Clara Butt, that
having set a bad example by adopting the title Not much, it seems, for at her concert at Glasgow
'Britain's Queen of Song,' she should now set a few days ago Tosti's 'Good-bye' was forth-
good one, and at the same time increase her coming as usual. It is sad.
prestige among musicians, by dropping it.
RAVEL'S HARMONY
Mention was made above of the limited reper-
tory of stars. Sometimes it is bad as well as BY ALFREDO CASELLA
In order effectively to 'place' Ravel as a ha
limited, and in this connection one cannot refrain
from commenting on some recent utterancesitofmust not be forgotten that his musical stu
Dame Nellie Melba. Her farewell tour has been carried on between the years 1890 and 1902,
i.e., during a period that was extremely chaotic and
well boosted, chiefly by means of interviews. In all
unsettled. Wagner was then at the height of his
of them Dame Nellie has attacked the taste of
fame, exercising a proud autocracy over three-
provincial audiences, thus: quarters of the world. Some day, in all probability,
Do you know that in the provinces musical tastethere will be found to exist a certain analogy between
has not developed at all in the last forty years? the ravages caused by the genius of Michael Angelo
London has made great strides. I think that
and those caused by that of Wagner. At all events,
Manchester and Liverpool, thanks to Halle anditthe is henceforth manifest that Wagner was mainly
orchestral concerts, are rather in advance of the others;
and Glasgow has made good progress, too. But inresponsible
the for the profound and lamentable crisis in
the theatrical world, from which we are only now
provinces generally they won't learn anything new.
painfully beginning to emerge. We are also indebted
They cannot get away from Tosti's 'Good-bye,' 'Down
to him for another crisis, equally grave, that through
in the Forest,' and that awful song, the 'Jewel Song'
from ' Faust.' It is sad. which harmony has passed from the time of
'Parsifal' down to yesterday. Indeed, vertical
And she says the same thing in her recently
published 'Melodies and Memories.' But rhetoric,
who i.e., the abuse of harmony and chords, as
opposed
has had a bigger share in creating the vogue of to the freedom of counterpoint, is the
fundamental evil that assails the entire music of this
these songs than the Dame herself ? I turn up
period, and was destined finally to lead to the
the Musical Times of June, 1921 , and find quoted
phenomenon of Sch6nberg-utter absence of tonality.
an interview from the Daily Mail (which at that Both in France and in Italy there is now an entire
time was campaigning on behalf of her 'Au Revoirgeneration of new musicians who are able to look
Concert'). Therein she says that she 'loves anupon music as purely devoid of tone, as young painters
English audience as much as it loves her. To nowadays regard the defunct 'cubism.'
appeals for their favourite songs she is never deaf.'Nevertheless, while the good sense of the Latin
What were the 'favourite' songs she gave them so race has preserved certain schools from the harmonic
readily ? I have not the complete programme, but excesses of Vienna (which, indeed, were necessary
from a newspaper report I find that at the 'Au and salutary in view of the final clarification), it
must yet be admitted that no European musician,
Revoir Concert' at the Albert Hall she sang the
during the period extending from 188o to I920, has
'Jewel Song' from 'Faust,' Tosti's 'Good-bye,' succeeded in escaping from the great 'harmonic
and 'By the Waters of Minnetonka,' the last- nightmare,' and that a feverish embellishment of
named being a song which, judging from the harmony has been the main technical preoccupation
sample of text and music quoted in the Musical of these musicians.
Times of June, I92I, is surely one of the world's Consequently, Ravel could not evade the law of
very worst. As these songs were deemed good his time. Indeed, we note that his music is
enough for London in I92I, we may be characterised by harmonic refinement of extreme
sure they were not too bad for the provinces atpreciosity and of absolute perfection.
We have now to consider what are the more or
that time. In the face of these facts, the Dame'sless immediate origins of this harmony, and after
lament over public taste is the sheerest humbug.wards of what it consists essentially.
If thirty years ago she had realised the responsi- When the amazing personality of Maurice Ravel
bilities of her position as one of the most giftedbegan to express itself, many critics thought it righ
to dispute the existence in him of any originality
and popular of singers, she could have done a great

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 THE MUSICAL TIMES-FEBRUARY I 1926 125

at all, and doubtless there are certain entire musical language of the 19th century. Nor
trustworthy
memoranda still extant consisting is of
it less evident that
violent the exploitation of this
articles
in which one of the most famous of Parisian critics chord reaches its culminating point in Debussy, and
eloquently maintained that Ravel plagiarised afterwards rapidly dies away.
Debussy. A like mishap has since befallen other Still, in conformity with the law of human evolution,
musicians ; there are some even now whom criti- which governs the formation of successive cycles, a
cism for long years has delighted in depicting asstudy of the 19th century shows us, along with the
honourable successors of Stravinskyor of Sch6nberg, magnificent expansion of the chord of the major
though manifestly quite different from them. ninth in Wagner and Debussy, the gradual elaboration
Nevertheless there is no error-or even stupidity of the following harmonic concept, i.e., of the
-that does not contain at least some element of
truth. And in the Debussy-Ravel affair we can eleventh harmonic the first traces of which
now readily discern that while the personalities of
both musicians are fundamentally divergent, and
quite as impossible to confuse as those of Schumann are actually to be seen in Mozart.
and Mendelssohn, it is nevertheless evident that Truth to tell, we find in Debussy frequent
both had identical predilections as regards the allusions to this harmonic. Nevertheless, Debussy
past. And the essential. trait that unites the two still remains the exponent of the major ninth. And
creators is that they altogether repudiated the tire-
it is only in Ravel that the new chord is finally used
some and ridiculous burden of a philosophico-in a constant, conscious, and spontaneous manner-
musical Wagnerism, and, instead, returned to a more for while his early works still contain such rare
Latin conception ofmusic. Both revered Mozart examples of the major ninth as:
and Chopin ; they were ardent admirers of the
Russian influence and faithful friends of Chabrier. Ex..'.
In short, they remained stubbornly opposed to the
post-Wagnerian Franckist movement, which, by
reason of its Germanic and Flemish origins, was at AliY

the very antipodes to their aspirations, so French in

their clarity.
(-7ex d'ea
Still, though undoubtedly Debussy and Ravel have
one and the same ancestral spirituality, we must not
from
lose sight of the immediate influences which largely the period
contributed to the ultimate formation of their (1902-03) we mee
makes of the eleventh harmonic:
personalities. Whereas the indolent and voluptuous
muse of Massenet manifestly entrances Debussy in
his youth (see 'L'Enfant Prodigue,' ' Printemps,' &c.),
the neo-classic spirit of Camille Saint-Satns-also
emphatically French-and of his disciple, Gabriel EX..2
Faur6, who was Ravel's master, finally and irrevocably o 4 Fl-R
Ti :
marks out the personality of the future author of
'Ma M~re l'Oye.' The result is that the musician,
whom some regarded at most as a pale reflection of
Debussy, appears before us to-day as diametrically
opposed to his proud rival. Whereas Debussy
created-and at the same time exhausted-musical -so personal even t
impressionism, Ravel remained faithful to classic harmonic style of R
structures, renewing and rejuvenating them.But So the exploitat
profound is the abyss that separates the comes
twowithin the category of 'physical' facts,
creators. seeing that it is based on the phenomenon of natural
One day Ravel confessed to me :' What a resonance.
melodist There is also another very important
I have become !' And indeed he is far more than a aspect of this question of harmony: the great use
polyphonist, he is both a delightful 'monodist' which
andRavel makes of the affoggiatura, and of
an unrivalled harmonist. Not that, on occasion, its exceptional
he resolutions.
cannot also add melody to melody. As a rule, Ravel's early detractors disdainfully referred to his
however, his supple lyricism is unsuitable to music as le culte de la note t ctM. There is much
truth in this also. Ravel's marvellous sensibility,
polymelodic dullness, and then, like Mozart, Scarlatti,
or Chopin, all he requires is a melodic line, of rich and to create a special sound language of its own,
eager
subtle harmony, that is also both natural and light. was compelled to make him adopt and regularly
There is no harmonic language, however complex, employ a certain number of harmonic aggregations
that cannot be synthesised in a few fundamental which his predecessors had scarcely dared to
consider.
concepts.
Jean Marnold once said that the only musical Apropos of Ravel, much has been said of unre-
difference between romanticism and the 18th centurysolved affoggiature, thus exaggerating the importance
of this artifice in his music. In most cases the
dwindled dqwn to a single chord: the dominant
affoggiature of this harmony are resolved upo
major ninth There is much truth in other affoggiature. Genuine unresolved affoggiature
however, are few in number.
Of Ravel's favourite afoggiatura chords, the
this, even though it seems to reduce a century
of music to a purely technical problem. Assuredly
the chord of the major ninth, introduced by most important are which dates back to
Weber, gave a totally different complexion to the

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126 THE MUSICAL TIMES-FEBRUARY I 1926

the I8th century ; and mention only the ' Gibet,' entirely built up round an
inverted pedal for forty-eight bars, and containing
this amazing passage

Ex.7.
The former has supplied Ravel with splendid
possibilities, as in the passage

Ex. 3.

The 'Alborada del gracioso' offers us another

(Dafihnis et Chloe) example :

The latter forms the basis of a host of valuable

Ex.8
examples, one of which is the following:

Ex.54.

findin a chromatic succession of major seconds, the

combination of which with other elements has

suggested a host of savoury details, such as :

- ; -I F .....UI a U

In 'Scarbo,' the same artifice is carried to such

pianistic virtuosity as the following:
and which he evidently borrowed from Chopin :

Ex.1O. s 2-' e " R

Here is a chord frequently exploited by Ravel

Amongst other harmonic artifices we are constantly
finding, must be quoted the pedals, principally
inverted, which Ravel utilised in masterly style. I

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 THE MUSICAL TIMES-FEBRUARY I 1926 127

It is interesting to note that profound in certainerror tocases

imagine like:
that so refined and subtle
an art does not have an adequate re-awakening.
And indeed we find that harmony, starting with
ExxI, . 'Jeux d'Eau' (190o), gradually reaches a maximum of
elaboration in 'Daphnis et Chlo6' (1910). Then a
new style appears in the Trio (1914), and more
I ."A " +. ' = - 4-w than ever in the 'Tombeau de Couperin' (1916-17).
EiE-" In this style, without repudiating the past, Ravel
seems bent on simplification; it is then that his
harmony becomes less overburdened. The sense of
the use of this chord makes us momentarily tonality also tends towards
connectmodification along the
Ravel with Puccini. A mere chance, doubtless, line of a synthetic permeation of divers scales (such
though amusing enough, considering how slight as the
the charming d6b^it of the Forlane in the
resemblance between the two musicians. 'Tombeau de Couperin'). And this tendency
towards simplification is continued in the 'Valse'
Apart from the traditional major and minor scales,
for orchestra, and in the 'Duo' for 'cello and violin.
Ravel fairly often uses the Greek scales-the Dorian,
the Hypo-dorian, and sometimes also the Phrygian. RavelIn has been dubbed both scolastique by
this he approaches Debussy, doubtless because,certainlike youthful compatriots of his, and tarabiscoti
the author of 'Pell6as,' he had come strongly underby other fretful minds. There is much truth in both
the Russo-Byzantine influence. His polymodality, definitions. Still, it is precisely because he succeeded
however, is essentially different from Debussy's in ineffecting a wonderful equilibrium between sane
tradition and an ardent thirst after novelty, that he
that it never employs the hexaphonic scale (in whole-
has proved himself the greatest musician in France
tones) ; and it is this that clearly distinguishes Ravel
not only from Debussy, but also from d'Indy and since the death of Debussy.
from Dukas, musicians who have made considerable At all events, only one thing in art is of
use of this scale, which at one time was consideredimportance : that the creator attain to that mysterious
so opulent and was subsequently found to be so region where spirit and matter are one, where it
deficient. becomes impossible to dissociate phantasy from
The preceding may suffice to show how profoundlytechnique, because they are so intimately united.
classic is this music which at first appeared And it is henceforth evident that Ravel belongs to
that small band of the elect to whom it has been
to be so revolutionary. The harmony of Ravel
is deeply rooted in tradition. It contains no given to contemplate the serene visage of ultimat
perfection.
striving whatsoever after atonality, nor does it even
attain to polytonality. Its power consists mainly in (Auth/orised translation by Fred Rowell//.)
the fact that, far from being a perilous and empirical
leap into the unknown, it is nothing else than a
splendid embellishment, an amazing ornamental OPERA RECORDS
'variation' brought to the edifice of high tradition
by a fascinating craftsman, an artist of genius. I.-LONDON, PARIS, AND DRESDEN
The following bars, which have caused so much BY WAKELING W. DRY
discussion in the past:
Two interesting centuries of performances were
reached during the last season at Covent Garden
in the case of 'Tristan and Isolda' and 'The
Mastersingers.' This reminds us that in the cas
of the more popular operas the number of tim
4 .
each has been performed is growing very large.
It is interesting to recall that Wagner began
masterpiece 'Tristan and Isolda' in 1855, and th
years later had completed the first Act. He fini
it at Lucerne, after having been robbed of a sum
publishers, Breitkopf & H~irtel, advanced to him
account of royalties. It is said that ?50 was the p
4i 4
paid for the copyright of this immortal work. 'Tri
waited six years after its completion before it saw
footlights, and was first played under von Btilo
are Munich, in I865, withthis
I' '? r A simply
Schorr von Carolsfeld an
his wife as the Tristan and the Isolda. It was
Ex.13.
:q :q first seen in London, in 1882, at a season of opera i
German-then quite a new departure which Sir
Augustus Harris organized and Richter conducted
Winkelmann being the Tristan and Rosa Sucher th
Isolda. Later that same year these two went to
Bayreuth when it first entered the Festival scheme.
I These artists were also the Walther and Eva in the
have sa
the case of Ravel. Ever since he concluded his
initial performance of 'The Mastersingers,' which was
studies, this musician has been in possession also firstofdone
so here during the same Drury Lane
miraculously perfect a technique that, as season. Neither opera seemed to attain much
happened
to Bach, Mozart, or Chopin, the perfection of the
success.

instrument inevitably assigns limits to the In possi-

the case of others of the more fam
bilities of evolution. All the same, it would be a 'Faust' reached its three-hundredth pe

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