Streaming Impressionist music as I work, I’m struck by how often a piece arrests me with its beauty, so I look to see what’s playing and it’s Ravel, again and again.
I know the movie 10 made Bolero even more famous, but there’s a heckuva lot more to Ravel than that.
@ReaderJohn Absolutely. He wrote the best piano concerto since Brahms and the best string quartet since Beethoven (Debussy being a close second). All kinds of amazing work!
@isaacgreene You’ve piqued my interest: Which piano concerto and which string quartet? I’ll make it a point to give them a listen, not just a chance to pop up in unrelated pieces in an Idagio playlist.
@cjhubbs @ReaderJohn piano concerto in G (Jean-Yve Thibaudet is my favorite recording) and string quartet M. 35 (I think he only has one). Emerson String Quartet’s recording is great.
@isaacgreene @ReaderJohn Yeah, Ravel is like the Byrds: I can’t stand the hits, but once I listened to some of the back catalogue I understood why he gets the respect.
@dwalbert @isaacgreene Love it, though I don’t know the Byrds back catalog; I was more a jazz guy back then. I still like jazz, but most of the time go “classical” in the broad sense with a penchant for the impressionists.
@ReaderJohn @isaacgreene and the 2nd violin sonata! (I mean, I can’t make any grand historical claims for it; I just love it.) So much invention, in a bunch of different directions . . .
@elliotlovegrove @readerjohn These are all just my opinions of course :) I don’t know any of his violin sonatas, now I have homework.
@isaacgreene it’s one of the sonatas I’ve heard where the musicians sound most like equal collaborators developing the music together, instead of like a soloist and an accompanist pretending to be a collaborator 🙃
@isaacgreene Listened to both this afternoon. All movements of the string quartet, save possibly the fourth, were already familiar, but I didn’t know the context. Second movement of the piano concerto was the only familiar movement there.
Thanks for the pointers.
