Maurice Ravel - Shéhérazade [With score]

Composer: Joseph-Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 -- 28 December 1937)
Soprano: Véronique Gens
Conductor: John Axelrod
Orchestra: Loire National Orchestra

00:00 - I. Asie
09:19 - II. La flûte enchantée
12:13 - III. L'indifférent

In the early years of the 20th century he met the poet Tristan Klingsor, who had recently published a collection of free-verse poems under the title Shéhérazade, inspired by Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite of the same name, a work that Ravel also much admired. Ravel and Klingsor were fellow members of a group of young creative artists calling themselves "Les Apaches"; the poet read some of his new verses to the group, and Ravel was immediately taken with the idea of setting three of them. He asked Klingsor to make some minor changes before he set to work on the music.

Ravel's song cycle Shéhérazade, is for soprano (or tenor) solo and orchestra, setting the words of Klingsor's "Asie", "La flûte enchantée", and "L'indifférent". It was first performed on 17 May 1904 at a Société Nationale concert at the Salle Nouveau Théâtre, Paris, with Jeanne Hatto and an orchestra conducted by Alfred Cortot. The three songs of the cycle are individually dedicated by the composer to Hatto ("Asie"), Madame René de Saint-Marceaux ("La flûte enchantée") and Emma Bardac ("L'indifférent").

Asie - The first, and longest, song of the three is in the dark key of E flat minor. It typically lasts ten minutes in performance. It is, in Rae's words, "a panorama of oriental fantasy evoking Arabia, India and, at a dramatic climax, China." With the continually repeated words "je voudrais voir…" ("I should like to see…" or "I want to see…"), the poet, or his imagined speaker, dreams of escape from quotidian life into a European fantasy of Asian enticements. The music increases in intensity as his imaginations become more feverish, until subsiding to end placidly, back in the real world.

La flûte enchantée - In this song, a young slave girl tending her sleeping master, hears her lover playing his flute outside. The music, a mixture of sad and joyful, seems to her like a kiss flying to her from her beloved. The flute melody is marked by the use of the Phrygian mode.

L'indifférent - The final song of the cycle has prompted much speculation. The poet, or his imaginary speaker, is much taken with the charms of an androgynous youth, but fails to persuade him to come into his – or her – house to drink wine. It is not clear whether the boy's admirer is male or female; one of Ravel's colleagues expressed the strong hope that the song would be sung by a woman, as it customarily is. The song is in E major, with oscillating string motifs in the orchestral accompaniment which in Rae's view are reminiscent of Debussy’s Nocturnes.

Original Video:    • Véronique Gens: The complete "Shéhéra...