Maurice Ravel - Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, M.57b (1913) [Score-Video]

Maurice Ravel - Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, M.57b (1913)

I. Lever de jour. Lent
II. Pantomime
III. Danse générale

Transcribed by Vyacheslav Gryaznov

Duo Shalamov
Alina and Nikolay Shalamov, pianos

Notes from Vyacheslav Gryaznov: Isn’t it surprising that the music of «Daphnis et Chloe» — Ravel's masterpiece — has not had a proper piano arrangement? It is especially strange because many works of the French composer have «doubles» — the piano or, on the contrary, the orchestral transcription, done by the author. There are a lot of examples: «Menuet antique», «Pavane pour une infante dеfunte», «Une barque sur l'ocean» and «Alborada del gracioso» from the piano cycle «Miroirs», the «Rapsodie espagnole», «Valses nobles et sentimentales», «Le tombeau de Couperin», a choreographic poem «La Valse» (for which, by the way, Ravel did two transcriptions — for one and two pianos).

Large and most significant cycles were left unique, not having a pair (we will not consider operas now). These are «Gaspard de la nuit» for piano and the ballet «Daphnis et Chloe». It is known, that there are only sketches of the author's orchestration of the piano cycle, and only a few fragments of the ballet arranged by the author for one piano have been published. It is worth noticing that the composer worked on these things at the same time — the ballet was created in the period of 1907 — 1912, and the «Gaspard» was finished in 1908.

It was a great Russian choreographer Mikhail Fokine who had an idea to make a ballet on an antic plot. He could not get support in the Mariinsky Theater in Saint-Petersburg but he was lucky to be understood by Ravel who became interested in the Longus' novel «Daphnis et Chloe». No wonder this novel became famous all over the world due to the translation done by the French philologist Jacques Amyot (16th century). Many pastorals, which were so popular in European literature in the 17th and 18th centuries were based on «Daphnis et Chloe» and these names became classic for the pastoral genre. Still, the Longus' novel is not so simple and naive as it could seem to be at first, and the main point of it cannot be reduced just to a pastoral. There is a mild irony in it and a moral, which is not obtrusive; some erotic element of it is not vulgar, and the idyll is not too sweet. It is a hymn of love. Love, which is real, sensuous and very pure at the same time. And Eros is interpreted here as not just a playful chubby boy with a bow and arrows. Longus' Eros is «older than Saturn, and the whole time of this Universe», «he rules elements, rules stars, rules gods equal to him».

The plot of Longus' novel was seriously shortened and simplified to make a ballet. So, Ravel used other methods than Longus did to avoid pastoral naivete and to build his own masterpiece. I think it won't be an exaggeration to say that the main expressive means in this ballet is an orchestra. Not without a reason did Ravel name this work a «choreographic symphony». The music in the ballet and especially in its last part (the Second Suite) is not just rich in colors, timbers, aromas — it is sumptuous. All in it bewitches you — its soft and beautiful water-colour painting, its exquisite harmonies which are like tart wine, its overwhelming power, its impetuous bacchanalia dance, not stripped of some antique wildness. It was even more interesting to try to express all of this by the means of a piano (two pianos, to be more exact, for one piano evidently will not be enough), and even try to compete with the orchestra.

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[Quotenwagnerianer]

What a performance! They sound like one instrument. That is so difficult to achieve with the balances.

[nicolasaubertpiano]

00:05 Lever du jour
06:33 Pantomime
10:59 Danse générale

[ziqianliu]

This is such a wonderful transcription! Thank you for uploading!

[eytonshalomsandiego]

thanks for the music, and for the mini essay!!! i appreciate your efforts, really....and your composing of course.

[jebemtimater]

4:12 is such a beautiful amalgamation of so many notes holy

[ShaunakDesaiPiano]

Lever du jour bears a lot of melodic, harmonic and textural similarities to Ondine from Gaspard de la Nuit when transcribed to this two-piano version.

[Shark-Rex]

This is what should be called music. I think now the modern composers they are just like Ravel's era(late romantic/early modern) composers like to use some so-called "non-European elements" different from Bach. But the harmony of now the modern composers sounds exactly the same as late romantic/early modern composers, but now the modern composers do not have the same superb compositional techniques as late romantic /early composers.Classical music has been completely regressing step by step in the past hundred years. Although there was a so-called "neo-classicism" that wanted to imitate Bach and Haydn, they neither wrote fugues nor sonatas, which was lying. The trend of the times in classical music has been equated with the trend of the fashion circle. "Trends" have become something that is superficial but without substance. I think Stravinsky and his fashion sweetheart are responsible for this.

[caseyrafn]

Too many notes. Just a cut a few, and it will be perfect.