The French conductor Charles Dutoit performs two works that need little introduction. A concert performance of Murice Ravel’s longest composition—Dafnis et Chloé—and one of the last symphonies by a composer Ravel admired: Mozart’s 39th.
“A crazy week”, Maurice Ravel complained in a letter to Madame de Saint-Marceaux in June 1909. He was at work on preparing the new ballet Daphnis et Chloé, commissioned for the Ballets Russes by their impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Adding to the chaos and complications was the fact that the choreographer Michel Fokine could not speak a word of French, while Ravel could only curse in Russian.
Because the artists were unable to reach conceptual agreement, the work was revised several times, and its premiere was delayed until 1912. The tale of the love of the shepherds Chloé and Daphnis turned out to be Ravel’s longest composition. And according to Igor Stravinsky, a man otherwise stingy with complements whose Rite of Spring was heard the following year in Paris, Daphnis et Chloé was Ravel’s greatest work, and in fact one of the most beautiful pieces of the French repertoire.
Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 also got a warm reception. “The opening is so majestic that it so surprised even the coldest, most insensitive listener and non-expert, that even if he wanted to chat, it prevented him from being inattentive”, wrote one of the first listeners describing experience in 1792.
Ravel spoke of Mozart as one of the greatest masters in music history. He regarded a critic’s comparison of him to Mozart as an exaggeration, but he did not deny the strong closeness he felt to this predecessor. Now you can judge for yourselves.
