Le Tombeau de Couperin (The Grave of Couperin) is a suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917. The piece is in six movements, based on those of a traditional Baroque suite. Each movement is dedicated to the memory of a friend of the composer (or in one case, two brothers) who had died fighting in World War I. Ravel also produced an orchestral version of the work in 1919, although this omitted two of the original movements.
The word tombeau in the title is a musical term popular from the 17th century, meaning "a piece written as a memorial". The specific Couperin, among a family noted as musicians for about two centuries, that Ravel intended to evoke is thought to be François Couperin "the Great" (1668–1733). Ravel stated that his intention was to pay homage more generally to the sensibilities of the Baroque French keyboard suite, not necessarily to imitate or pay tribute to Couperin himself in particular. This is reflected in the piece's structure, which imitates a Baroque dance suite. [1]
As a preparatory exercise, Ravel had transcribed a forlane (an Italian folk dance) from the fourth suite of Couperin's Concerts royaux , and this piece invokes Ravel's Forlane structurally. The other movements are similarly based on Baroque forms, with the Toccata taking the form of a perpetuum mobile reminiscent of Alessandro Scarlatti. [2] Ravel also revives Baroque practices through his distinctive use of ornamentation and modal harmony. Neoclassicism also shines through with Ravel's pointedly twentieth-century chromatic melody and piquant harmonies, particularly in the dissonant Forlane.
Written after the death of Ravel's mother in 1917 and of friends in the First World War, Le Tombeau de Couperin is a light-hearted, and sometimes reflective work rather than a sombre one which Ravel explained in response to criticism saying: "The dead are sad enough, in their eternal silence." [3] [ failed verification ]
The first performance of the original piano version was given on 11 April 1919 by Marguerite Long, in the Salle Gaveau in Paris. Long was the widow of Joseph de Marliave, to whom the last movement of the piece, the Toccata, is dedicated. [4]
The movements are as follows:
I | Prélude | Vif | 12 16 |  . = 92 | E minor [5] | in memory of First Lieutenant Jacques Charlot (transcriber of Ma mère l'oye for piano solo) | |
II | Fugue | Allegro moderato | 4 4 | = 84 | E minor | in memory of Second Lieutenant Jean Cruppi (to whose mother, Louise Cruppi, Ravel had also dedicated L'heure espagnole ) | |
III | Forlane | Allegretto | 6 8 | . = 96 | E minor | in memory of First Lieutenant Gabriel Deluc (a Basque painter from Saint-Jean-de-Luz) | |
IV | Rigaudon | Assez vif | 2 4 | = 120 | C major | in memory of Pierre and Pascal Gaudin (two brothers and childhood friends of Ravel, killed by the same shell in November 1914) | |
V | Menuet | Allegro moderato | 3 4 | = 92 | G major | in memory of Jean Dreyfus (at whose home Ravel recuperated after he was demobilized) | |
VI | Toccata | Vif | 2 4 | = 144 | E minor ending in E major | in memory of Captain Joseph de Marliave (musicologist and husband of Marguerite Long) |
In 1919 Ravel orchestrated four movements of the work (Prélude, Forlane, Menuet and Rigaudon); [6] this version was premiered in February 1920 by Rhené-Baton and the Pasdeloup Orchestra, and has remained one of his more popular works.[ citation needed ] The orchestral version clarifies the harmonic language of the suite and brings sharpness to its classical dance rhythms. The oboe features prominently, taking the melody in the Prélude and the Menuet, as well as for the pastoral C minor section of the Rigaudon, where it is accompanied by guitar-like pizzicati. [7]
The orchestrated version is scored for two flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes (one doubling cor anglais), two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, trumpet, harp, and strings.
Only a few years after Ravel's own orchestration, Lucien Garban (working under the pseudonym of Roger Branga) produced a version of the piece for 'small orchestra' with a piano-conductor, consisting of the Prélude, Menuet and Rigaudon. He had previously transcribed the full suite for piano four hands in 1919.
Several other composers have since created orchestrations of those two movements which Ravel omitted, the Fugue and the Toccata. David Diamond orchestrated the second movement Fugue, while the Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltán Kocsis produced his own version of both the Fugue and the Toccata. However, here, the Toccata, scored for a very large orchestra, goes far beyond the limits of Ravel's own, small orchestra, and the Fugue is set for winds only. Another instrumentation of Fugue and Toccata by pianist Michael Round was recorded by Vladimir Ashkenazy (Exton, 2003): the score is published (as two separate titles, 'Fugue' and 'Toccata') by Edwin F. Kalmus. Round's version of the Toccata adds percussion, requiring up to five players. Kalmus omitted the percussion parts from the published score so as to exactly match the orchestration of the rest of the suite, but these parts are available separately, directly from the orchestrator. In 2013 the British composer Kenneth Hesketh orchestrated the Fugue and Toccata for the exact orchestration of the original four-movement orchestral suite. The first performance was given by the Goettingen Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph-Mathias Mueller. The scores are available from Schott Music, London.
Four movements (Prélude, Forlane, Menuet, and Rigaudon) have been arranged for wind quintet by American horn player Mason Jones (1919–2009). [8] Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen has also transcribed four movements for wind quintet, [9] and further, American composer Gunther Schuller has made a wind-quintet arrangement. [10]
In 1986 an orchestration of the Prélude was created by Michel Colombier for Branford Marsalis on his album Romances for Saxophone. Marsalis played the melody with a soprano saxophone. [11]
In 2013, Trevor P. Wagler re-arranged the orchestral version of four movements (Prélude, Forlane, Menuet, and Rigaudon) down to a quintet (ob/cl/vn/vcl/pft), premiered at Wilfrid Laurier University. [12]
The four orchestral movements (Prélude, Forlane, Menuet and Rigaudon) were arranged by Elena González Arias (Adliswil: Ed.Kunzelmann, 2014) for oboe and piano in 2014. [13]
The Toccata from Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim's Five Pieces for Piano, Op. 34 is "indebted" to the Toccata from Tombeau. [14]
Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.
Maurice Gustave Duruflé was a French composer, organist, musicologist, and teacher.
A suite, in Western classical music, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes and grew in scope to comprise up to five dances, sometimes with a prelude, by the early 17th century. The separate movements were often thematically and tonally linked. The term can also be used to refer to similar forms in other musical traditions, such as the Turkish fasıl and the Arab nuubaat.
A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. While, during the Baroque era, for example, it may have served as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that were usually longer and more complex, it may also have been a stand-alone piece of work during the Romantic era. It generally features a small number of rhythmic and melodic motifs that recur through the piece. Stylistically, the prelude is improvisatory in nature. The term may also refer to an overture, particularly to those seen in an opera or an oratorio.
Toccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers. Less frequently, the name is applied to works for multiple instruments.
François Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.
Ma mère l'Oye is a suite by French composer Maurice Ravel. The piece was originally written as a five-movement piano duet in 1910. In 1911, Ravel orchestrated the work.
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Leopold "Leo" Smit was a Dutch composer, murdered during The Holocaust at the Sobibor extermination camp.
The rigaudon, anglicized as rigadon or rigadoon, is a French baroque dance with a lively duple metre. The music is similar to that of a bourrée, but the rigaudon is rhythmically simpler with regular phrases. It originated as a sprightly 17th-century French folk dance for couples. Traditionally, the folkdance was associated with the provinces of Vivarais, Languedoc, Dauphiné, and Provence in southern France, and it became popular as a court dance during the reign of Louis XIV. Its hopping steps were adopted by the skillful dancers of the French and English courts, where it remained fashionable through the 18th century. By the close of the 18th century, however, it had given way in popularity as a ballroom dance to the minuet; however, in the 20th century, Maurice Ravel would employ this baroque dance in his piano suite Le Tombeau de Couperin.
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The furlana is an Italian folk dance from the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. In Friulian, furlane means Friulian, in this case Friulian Dance. In Friuli there has been a Slav minority since the Slavic settlement of the Eastern Alps, and the furlana may well have originated as a Slavonic dance. It dates at least to 1583, when a "ballo furlano" called L'arboscello was published in Pierre Phalèse the Younger’s Chorearum molliorum collectanea and in Jakob Paix’s organ tablature book, though its chief popularity extended from the late 1690s to about 1750. It is particularly associated with Venice because, at the time of its popularity, Friuli was a part of the Republic of Venice.
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Pour le piano, L. 95, is a suite for solo piano by Claude Debussy. It consists of three individually composed movements, Prélude, Sarabande and Toccata. The suite was completed and published in 1901. It was premiered on 11 January 1902 at the Salle Érard, played by Ricardo Viñes. Maurice Ravel orchestrated the middle movement.
Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn is a minuet for solo piano written by Maurice Ravel in 1909 to mark the centenary of Joseph Haydn's death.
The orchestral Dance Suite from Keyboard Pieces by François Couperin, TrV 245 was composed by Richard Strauss in 1923 and consists of eight movements, each one based on a selection of pieces from François Couperin's Pièces de Clavecin written for the solo harpsichord over the period 1713 to 1730. It is also sometimes referred to as simply The Couperin Suite.
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