Ravel Une Barque sur l’océan

Maurice Ravel in 1905 was living in Paris, was 30 at the time, sported a beard, and belonged to a social group of artists and writers. One time the gang was out and someone called them “Apaches”. The name stuck and they would greet each other by whistling the first theme from Borodin’s Symphony 2.

There was more to the “Apaches” than Ravel and his friends, it was actually a subculture of street gangs collectively known as Apaches, (frivolously translated as "hooligans"). They targeted the bourgeois middle class for depredation, shunned honest labor, slept late, and paid close attention to their sartorial style. You may be mugged by an Apache and terrified, but you could not help but admire his shoes. It is not known if Ravel ever mugged anyone.

Stravinsky characterized Ravel as “The Most Perfect of Swiss Watchmakers”, a fair assessment. Miroirs was inspired by a quotation from Shakespeare: “The eye sees itself not, but by reflection, by some other things.” Oiseaux tristes was the first of the set to be composed and it apparently baffled his fellow Apaches. His innovations in harmonic language, later influence of jazz, and thematic structure lived comfortably with his innate classicism. Given his relatively small number of compositions, each were polished to a high degree and bear the stamp of perfection.

The first, second and fifth pieces in the collection are relatively short, fairly abstract, and elusive. The other two, Une Barque sur l’océan and Alborada del gracioso are large scale, spectacular, and were later orchestrated.