Concerto for piano

Why is the title “Piano Concerto” definitive, rather than “Concerto in G”, which turns out to be wrong?

“Concerto in G” very quickly became a journalistic misnomer and a clumsy formulation. As early as 21 January 1932, just after the premiere, the musicologist Émile Vuillermoz used the term in his review in Candide. He is almost certainly the originator of this common phrase, which insists on giving a key to this unique concertante piece. Yet the premiere programme gave no key, and Ravel never wrote one on his manuscripts! The work was always registered with the Sacem without a key, and Durand reprinted the score six times under the only title Ravel wanted: “Concerto pour piano et orchestre”. Of course, for many it is simply a handy shortcut to distinguish this score from the Concerto for the Left Hand. Ravel, with his explosive humour, spoke of the “one-legged Concerto” and the “two-legged Concerto”. Beyond terminology (Mozart still doesn't know he wrote a Jupiter Symphony!), the essential point is the wish to fit this score into a tonal frame. Benjamin Attahir, with whom we worked on this edition, bristles at the idea when one seriously analyses a score full of modes and blue notes.

Is this a “French concerto”, in the line of Saint-Saëns?

In his general introduction to this new volume, François Porcile explains how obsolete and odd the idea of a piano concerto seemed in France in the first decades of the 20th century. It took the 1920s and the rise of a neoclassical aesthetic for new pieces to take up the concerto structure again, with a dialogue between soloist and orchestra in a fairly short format and usually a reduced orchestra. Ravel said his models for the new piece were Mozart and Saint-Saëns. This “reading guide” was taken up by the whole press and even appears in the premiere programme note. Others heard Bach in the second movement. I mostly hear the atmosphere of jazz, a Basque festival and Spanish colours in the fast movements. The key idea is an intrinsic desire for clarity and simplicity. That is the charm and the stroke of genius of this score, which oscillates between two worlds: the “classicism” of French music from Couperin to Saint-Saëns, and the blaring jazz accents Ravel was so fond of. Indeed, on one of the first-violin parts from Charles Münch's material made available to us, a player has hastily written in pencil at the top: “Hommage à Gershwin”…

What do the sources tell us about Ravel's work on the piece?

That it was a real ordeal for him! It is astonishing to realise how much difficulty this seemingly effortless, fluent score caused its composer, to the point of damaging his health. One need only look at his gaunt, drawn face in photographs from the winter 1932 tour, or read his letters describing his physical and nervous exhaustion… The historical context is well known: from Koussevitzky's commission to the Paris premiere without Ravel at the piano (he withdrew two months before!), the long months of procrastination, the successive abandonments and cancellations. Reading the orchestral manuscript, one clearly sees problems of notation and a much less assured hand than in later manuscripts. Ravel's note heads were no larger than a millimetre, written hastily and uncertainly for some notes, so that it is sometimes hard to tell whether they sit on a line or in a space…

From the publisher's date stamp on the first page of the first movement of the manuscript, and from a letter to Lucien Garban, his editor at Durand, announcing its dispatch, we know that this movement was delivered only in early August 1931, and we have been able to reconstruct that the other movements were composed and orchestrated in a rush for the engraving in December 1931. The second movement, which bears almost no articulation or phrasing marks in the composer's hand, was clearly finished last. Lucien Garban, standing in for Marguerite Long in checking the solo part — which she had to learn in record time, about a month and a half! —, had to redouble his efforts to deliver a full score and parts on time. Which, of course, in such conditions, led to recurring editorial and engraving problems…

How do the scores of Ravel's contemporaries add editorial value? Do they differ?

Besides the orchestral manuscript, which remains the only complete source known for this work (only a few pages of preliminary two-piano sketches or orchestration survive, in the Taverne Collection), and which helped us understand the engraving errors of the first edition as well as the composer's own mistakes or omissions, a proof of the two-piano reduction piously kept by Marguerite Long is a source as fascinating as it is moving. On these pages one finds the three hands of Ravel, Garban and Marguerite Long in corrections, additions, deletions, fingerings and so on. The “great” French pianist, who became the guardian of this temple of Apollo, passed on the keys of this Concerto to her pupils and marked many corrections in their scores, which can still be found in various collections.

One essential task was to understand the turn taken by the 6th Durand edition in 1966, published a few months after Marguerite Long's death and several years after that of the faithful Garban, with substantial changes to the text. Above all — and this became as legendary as the unofficial “G major” label —, a specified number of strings appeared, although Ravel had imposed nothing of the kind. On the contrary, the “historical” material held by the Orchestre Lamoureux contains far more parts than the edition has indicated since 1966! It took a long investigation to understand what was, here too, a misunderstanding or a misreading…

Interview conducted on 11 November 2019

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