What I Listened To: Week of 7/18/22

by  on  in What I Listened To

Here’s a link to my original post, ‘Healing My Brain Through Music’.

This week I focused on the music of Maurice Ravel. I decided to go old school and pretend that I was listening to a CD. No jumping around from one track to another on Spotify. For this 1998 recording Pierre Boulez conducted The Cleveland Orchestra and the London Symphony (Track 12). The pianist was Kristian Zimmerman.

  • Piano Concerto in G Major, M. 83
    • I. Allegramente / I hear strong shades of George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue‘ in this movement. Gershwin wrote ‘Rhapsody’ in 1924. Ravel wrote his G Major piano concerto in 1931. Was Ravel checking out Gershwin?
    • II. Adagio assai / This movement was simply extraordinary, and honestly brought tears to my eyes. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful. The piano is alone for a full three minutes playing chords in the left hand and a simple but lovely melody in the right hand. I forgot that I was listening to a concerto until the orchestra joins in and takes over the melody. First with the flute, then followed by a high clarinet. They trade the melody for a little while before the piano comes back in. It’s difficult to describe what Ravel does here. There’s a tension to what the pianist is playing that is wonderful. The way he creates this tension and the way he releases it. There’s so much to take in with this piece. I’ll definitely be returning to it again.
    • III. Presto / I was searching for the right word to descibe this movement. I toyed with ‘fun’ and ‘madcap’ before settling on ‘exhilarating’. Seriously, please do check out this whole concerto.
  • Valse Nobels et sentimentales, M. 61 / 8 short movments. This could easily be 1940’s film music. Each movement is so whimsical and flows easily into the next.
  • Piano Concerto for the Left Hand / I have absolutely no idea how anyone could pull this piece off with just the left hand. Ravel was commissioned to write this piece by Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right hand in World War I. I’ve included a YouTube video of Yuja Wang playing the piece so that you can get a sense of how insanely difficult it must be to play this thing.