Day Thirteen: Martha Argerich plays Ravel
The second movement of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major is an oasis of calm, situated in between two outer movements full of animation, vivacity and exoticism. Following a highly successful tour of the US in 1928, Ravel began work on this concerto the following year. His intention was to play the work in yet another tour, this time including not only Europe and North America but also South America and East Asia. In this respect, the work can be seen as almost a musical self-portrait of the composer, encapsulating his ideas and beliefs towards music.
Ravel was very much writing against the trend of many nineteenth century concertos to be bombastic and heroic. He wanted to write a concerto in the spirit of Mozart or Saint-Saëns, commenting: “The music of a concerto should, in my opinion, be lighthearted and brilliant, and not aim at profundity or at dramatic effects. It has been said of certain great classics [specifically Brahms] that their concertos were written not ‘for,’ but ‘against’ the piano. I heartily agree.”
My recommended listening for today is a superlative performance of the second movement of the G Major Piano Concerto by Maurice Ravel, played by Martha Argerich, Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Not to diminish Ravel’s compositional integrity by any means, his desire for lightness of touch and spirit (much like Mozart) reveals an extraordinary depth of meaning and beauty. I personally find the second movement one of the most incredible moments of twentieth century (maybe all) music.
The movement begins with a timeless, flowing melody in the solo piano. Remarkably, the left hand figure at the beginning stays with us for the entire movement without changing its flow once. The rhythm of the music is very interesting here, the left hand of the piano playing a figure which gives the music a feeling of a very slow waltz, ie 1-2-3, 1-2,3. In fact, the music is half that metre, all six notes fitting into one single bar in three quarter(crotchet) notes. The music therefore is one-and-two-and-three-and. With the left hand seemingly in a (6/8) metre, the right hand plays a very simple melody in (3/4) time signature, giving the music a very natural but palpable tension that runs as an undercurrent to the tranquility of the surface.
Despite the work clearly exhibiting masterful writing, it is nevertheless a challenge for any performer to bring life to music that is simple in its construction, in this case a simple accompaniment and flowing melody in separate hands. What is therefore all the more remarkable about Argerich is that she manages to find, in my view, the perfect mixture of agogic potential that is inherent in the music. The way that she uses timing and timbre to create a sense of timelessness is such that I can only express deep gratitude and awe that we are able to listen to it.
Perhaps pianists will disagree with me here but an extra layer to her remarkable playing is that the piano is not actually suited to play such long, flowing lines. Technically speaking, it is impossible to create a true legato on the piano. There is no physical way of joining one sound to the next as there is on the violin or horn, for example. You press one key and then you have to press another. Separate hammers, separate sounds. What pianists therefore have to do is create the illusion of a legato in their use of timing, pedal and intention. To achieve the sense of line that Argerich creates is therefore all the more remarkable.
After the long piano introduction, it is the flute that first takes the melody over from the right hand of the piano, then the oboe and finally the clarinet before the piano introduces new material, this time with an orchestral accompaniment and we can consider this the middle section of the movement. When the piano begins its flowing figurations in the right hand, we have begun our ascent to the climax of the movement, Ravel building on sequence after sequence to get us there.
The cor anglais brings us back to the music of the beginning with the recapitulation. It plays the haunting and beautiful melody in full, accompanied by the right hand of the piano that takes its material from the brief middle section. This elegant counterpoint in the piano is further enhanced, harmonically and texturally, by the strings. There is a moment of pure magic when the music resolves to the major key, the piano playing up in the stratosphere of its range and accompanied for the first time by muted brass. For reference, this happens at minute 7:49 in this recording.
The music reaches its end with an extremely long trill in the right hand of the piano, the left hand carrying on with its ostinato, only slowing down to the main beats of the bar (1-2-3 with no and in between) in the penultimate measure of the movement.
For those that are interested, may I recommend not only watching the full concerto but also a highly interesting improvisation based on the second movement by the Jazz musician, Herbie Hancock:
