Ravel's Harmony

Author(s): Alfredo Casella

Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 67, No. 996 (Feb. 1, 1926), pp. 124-127
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
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124 THE MUSICAL TIMES-FEBRUARY I 1926

workthe
for music.
Able to count on halls crowded
'Queen of Song,' or 'Colossus of
Keyboard,'
is of any value from the box-office
view
? out of her hand, she
with point
devoteesof
ready
to eat
It is more likely to be a drawback,
arehundreds of fine songs.
could for
have there
popularised
not a few of us who, resenting the
dragging
down
Instead
she took the
easy line and popularised a
of the musical profession by such methods of handful of bad ones. And now she says 'It is sad.'
advertising, resolutely stay away from recitals given
True; but the cause for sadness is other than

by self-styled 'Kings' and 'Queens.' No other

the one she has in mind. However, better late

branch of art is degraded in this way. We do notthan never. The Dame thinks it is time her

find Sybil Thorndike announced as 'Britain's audiences were weaned from 'Good-bye' and the
Queen of Tragedy,' or Seymour Hicks as 'Jewel Song'; and her farewell tour will give her
' England's Comedy King.' They would gain a chance of starting the process at once. Will she

nothing in appreciation from such announcements,

take the strong line, and, for the first time in her

and they would certainly lose a good deal of prestige.

career, be 'deaf to appeals for their favourite

songs '? As this 'farewell tour' is not the first of

There are thousands of musicians no less jealous
than painters and actors for the honour of their
a series, but a really truly farewell, it is the Dame's
last chance. What will she do with it ?
profession, and I suggest to Dame Clara Butt, that

having set a bad example by adopting the title Not much, it seems, for at her concert at Glasgow
'Britain's Queen of Song,' she should now set a few days ago Tosti's 'Good-bye' was forth-

good one, and at the same time increase her

prestige among musicians, by dropping it.

coming as usual. It is sad.

RAVEL'S HARMONY

Mention was made above of the limited reperBY ALFREDO CASELLA

tory of stars. Sometimes it is bad as well as
In order effectively to 'place' Ravel as a ha
limited, and in this connection one cannot refrain
from commenting on some recent utterancesitofmust not be forgotten that his musical stu
Dame Nellie Melba. Her farewell tour has been carried on between the years 1890 and 1902,
i.e., during a period that was extremely chaotic and
well boosted, chiefly by means of interviews. In all
unsettled. Wagner was then at the height of his
of them Dame Nellie has attacked the taste of
fame, exercising a proud autocracy over threeprovincial audiences, thus:
quarters of the world. Some day, in all probability,
Do you know that in the provinces musical taste
there will be found to exist a certain analogy between
has not developed at all in the last forty years?
the ravages caused by the genius of Michael Angelo
London has made great strides. I think that
and those caused by that of Wagner. At all events,
Manchester and Liverpool, thanks to Halle anditthe
is henceforth manifest that Wagner was mainly

orchestral concerts, are rather in advance of the others;

for the profound and lamentable crisis in

and Glasgow has made good progress, too. But inresponsible
the
the theatrical world, from which we are only now
provinces generally they won't learn anything new.
painfully beginning to emerge. We are also indebted
They cannot get away from Tosti's 'Good-bye,' 'Down
in the Forest,' and that awful song, the 'Jewel Song'
to him for another crisis, equally grave, that through

from ' Faust.' It is sad.

which harmony has passed from the time of

'Parsifal' down to yesterday. Indeed, vertical
And she says the same thing in her recently
i.e., the abuse of harmony and chords, as
published 'Melodies and Memories.' But rhetoric,
who
opposed
has had a bigger share in creating the vogue
of to the freedom of counterpoint, is the
fundamental evil that assails the entire music of this

these songs than the Dame herself ? I turn up

period, and was destined finally to lead to the
the Musical Times of June, 1921 , and find quoted
phenomenon of Sch6nberg-utter absence of tonality.
an interview from the Daily Mail (which at that Both in France and in Italy there is now an entire
time was campaigning on behalf of her 'Au Revoirgeneration of new musicians who are able to look

Concert'). Therein she says that she 'loves anupon music as purely devoid of tone, as young painters
English audience as much as it loves her. To nowadays regard the defunct 'cubism.'

appeals for their favourite songs she is never deaf.'Nevertheless, while the good sense of the Latin
race has preserved certain schools from the harmonic
What were the 'favourite' songs she gave them so
excesses of Vienna (which, indeed, were necessary
readily ? I have not the complete programme, but
and salutary in view of the final clarification), it
from a newspaper report I find that at the 'Au
must yet be admitted that no European musician,
Revoir Concert' at the Albert Hall she sang the
during the period extending from 188o to I920, has
'Jewel Song' from 'Faust,' Tosti's 'Good-bye,' succeeded in escaping from the great 'harmonic
and 'By the Waters of Minnetonka,' the last- nightmare,' and that a feverish embellishment of
named being a song which, judging from the harmony has been the main technical preoccupation
sample of text and music quoted in the Musical of these musicians.
Times of June, I92I, is surely one of the world's Consequently, Ravel could not evade the law of
very worst. As these songs were deemed good his time. Indeed, we note that his music is
enough for London in I92I, we may be characterised by harmonic refinement of extreme
sure they were not too bad for the provinces atpreciosity and of absolute perfection.
We have now to consider what are the more or

that time. In the face of these facts, the Dame'sless immediate origins of this harmony, and after
lament over public taste is the sheerest humbug.wards of what it consists essentially.
If thirty years ago she had realised the responsi- When the amazing personality of Maurice Ravel
bilities of her position as one of the most giftedbegan to express itself, many critics thought it righ
to dispute the existence in him of any originality
and popular of singers, she could have done a great

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THE MUSICAL TIMES-FEBRUARY I 1926 125

at all, and doubtless there are certain
trustworthy
entire musical
language of the 19th century. Nor
memoranda still extant consisting
is of
it less
violent
evident that
articles
the exploitation of this
in which one of the most famous of Parisian critics chord reaches its culminating point in Debussy, and
eloquently maintained that Ravel plagiarised afterwards rapidly dies away.
Still, in conformity with the law of human evolution,
Debussy. A like mishap has since befallen other
musicians ; there are some even now whom criti- which governs the formation of successive cycles, a
cism for long years has delighted in depicting asstudy of the 19th century shows us, along with the
magnificent expansion of the chord of the major
honourable successors of Stravinskyor of Sch6nberg,
ninth in Wagner and Debussy, the gradual elaboration
though manifestly quite different from them.
of the following harmonic concept, i.e., of the
Nevertheless there is no error-or even stupidity
-that does not contain at least some element of

truth. And in the Debussy-Ravel affair we can eleventh harmonic the first traces of which
now readily discern that while the personalities of
both musicians are fundamentally divergent, and
quite as impossible to confuse as those of Schumann are actually to be seen in Mozart.
and Mendelssohn, it is nevertheless evident that
Truth to tell, we find in Debussy frequent
both had identical predilections as regards the allusions to this harmonic. Nevertheless, Debussy
past. And the essential. trait that unites the two still remains the exponent of the major ninth. And
creators is that they altogether repudiated the tireit is only in Ravel that the new chord is finally used
some and ridiculous burden of a philosophico-in a constant, conscious, and spontaneous mannerfor while his early works still contain such rare
musical Wagnerism, and, instead, returned to a more
Latin conception ofmusic. Both revered Mozart examples of the major ninth as:
and Chopin ; they were ardent admirers of the

Ex..'.

Russian influence and faithful friends of Chabrier.

In short, they remained stubbornly opposed to the

post-Wagnerian Franckist movement, which, by
reason of its Germanic and Flemish origins, was at
the very antipodes to their aspirations, so French in

AliY

their clarity.

(-7ex

Still, though undoubtedly Debussy and Ravel have

one and the same ancestral spirituality, we must not
lose sight of the immediate influences which largely

d'ea

from
the
period
(1902-03)
we
mee
makes of the eleventh harmonic:
personalities. Whereas the indolent and voluptuous
muse of Massenet manifestly entrances Debussy in
his youth (see 'L'Enfant Prodigue,' ' Printemps,' &c.),
the neo-classic spirit of Camille Saint-Satns-also

contributed to the ultimate formation of their

emphatically French-and of his disciple, Gabriel

Faur6, who was Ravel's master, finally and irrevocably

marks out the personality of the future author of

EX..2

Ti

o 4 Fl-R

'Ma M~re l'Oye.' The result is that the musician,

whom some regarded at most as a pale reflection of

Debussy, appears before us to-day as diametrically

opposed to his proud rival. Whereas Debussy

-so personal even t

harmonic style of R
impressionism, Ravel remained faithful to classic
the exploitat
structures, renewing and rejuvenating them.But
So
comes
profound is the abyss that separates the
twowithin the category of 'physical' facts,
seeing that it is based on the phenomenon of natural
creators.
resonance.
There is also another very important
One day Ravel confessed to me :' What a
melodist
I have become !' And indeed he is far more than a aspect of this question of harmony: the great use
which
polyphonist, he is both a delightful 'monodist'
andRavel makes of the affoggiatura, and of
its
exceptional
resolutions.
an unrivalled harmonist. Not that, on occasion,
he
Ravel's early detractors disdainfully referred to his
cannot also add melody to melody. As a rule,
however, his supple lyricism is unsuitable to music as le culte de la note t ctM. There is much
truth in this also. Ravel's marvellous sensibility,
polymelodic dullness, and then, like Mozart, Scarlatti,
eager
or Chopin, all he requires is a melodic line, of rich and to create a special sound language of its own,
was compelled to make him adopt and regularly
subtle harmony, that is also both natural and light.
employ a certain number of harmonic aggregations
There is no harmonic language, however complex,
that cannot be synthesised in a few fundamental which his predecessors had scarcely dared to
created-and at the same time exhausted-musical

consider.

concepts.

Jean Marnold once said that the only musical Apropos of Ravel, much has been said of unre-

difference between romanticism and the 18th centurysolved affoggiature, thus exaggerating the importance
of this artifice in his music. In most cases the

dwindled dqwn to a single chord: the dominant

affoggiature of this harmony are resolved upo
major ninth There is much truth in

other affoggiature. Genuine unresolved affoggiature

however, are few in number.

Of Ravel's favourite afoggiatura chords, the

this, even though it seems to reduce a century

of music to a purely technical problem. Assuredly

the chord of the major ninth, introduced by most important are which dates back to
Weber, gave a totally different complexion to the

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126 THE MUSICAL TIMES-FEBRUARY I 1926

the I8th century ; and

mention only the ' Gibet,' entirely built up round an

inverted pedal for forty-eight bars, and containing
this amazing passage
Ex.7.

The former has supplied Ravel with splendid

possibilities, as in the passage
Ex. 3.

(Dafihnis et Chloe)

The 'Alborada del gracioso' offers us another

example :

The latter forms the basis of a host of valuable

Ex.8

examples, one of which is the following:

Ex.54.

findin a chromatic succession of major seconds, the

combination of which with other elements has

suggested a host of savoury details, such as :

- ; -I F .....UI a U

and which he evidently borrowed from Chopin :

In 'Scarbo,' the same artifice is carried to such

pianistic virtuosity as the following:

Ex.1O. s 2-' e " R

Here is a chord frequently exploited by Ravel

Amongst other harmonic artifices we are constantly

finding, must be quoted the pedals, principally

inverted, which Ravel utilised in masterly style. I

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THE MUSICAL TIMES-FEBRUARY I 1926 127

error tocases
imagine like:
that so refined and subtle
It is interesting to note that profound
in certain
an art does not have an adequate re-awakening.
And indeed we find that harmony, starting with
ExxI, .
'Jeux d'Eau' (190o), gradually reaches a maximum of
elaboration in 'Daphnis et Chlo6' (1910). Then a
new style appears in the Trio (1914), and more
than ever in the 'Tombeau de Couperin' (1916-17).
In this style, without repudiating the past, Ravel
EiE-"
seems bent on simplification; it is then that his
harmony becomes less overburdened. The sense of
tonality also tends towards
modification along the
the use of this chord makes us momentarily
connect
Ravel with Puccini. A mere chance, doubtless, line of a synthetic permeation of divers scales (such

I ."A " +. ' = - 4-w

as the
the charming d6b^it of the Forlane in the
though amusing enough, considering how slight
'Tombeau de Couperin'). And this tendency
towards simplification is continued in the 'Valse'
Apart from the traditional major and minor scales,
for orchestra, and in the 'Duo' for 'cello and violin.
Ravel fairly often uses the Greek scales-the Dorian,
has been dubbed both scolastique by
the Hypo-dorian, and sometimes also the Phrygian. Ravel
In
youthful compatriots of his, and tarabiscoti
this he approaches Debussy, doubtless because,certain
like
by other fretful minds. There is much truth in both
the author of 'Pell6as,' he had come strongly under
definitions. Still, it is precisely because he succeeded
the Russo-Byzantine influence. His polymodality,
in in
effecting a wonderful equilibrium between sane
however, is essentially different from Debussy's
tradition and an ardent thirst after novelty, that he
that it never employs the hexaphonic scale (in wholehas proved himself the greatest musician in France
tones) ; and it is this that clearly distinguishes Ravel
since the death of Debussy.
not only from Debussy, but also from d'Indy and
At all events, only one thing in art is of
from Dukas, musicians who have made considerable
importance : that the creator attain to that mysterious
use of this scale, which at one time was considered
so opulent and was subsequently found to be so region where spirit and matter are one, where it
becomes impossible to dissociate phantasy from
deficient.
The preceding may suffice to show how profoundlytechnique, because they are so intimately united.
classic is this music which at first appeared And it is henceforth evident that Ravel belongs to
that small band of the elect to whom it has been
to be so revolutionary. The harmony of Ravel
is deeply rooted in tradition. It contains no given to contemplate the serene visage of ultimat
resemblance between the two musicians.

perfection.
striving whatsoever after atonality, nor does it even
attain to polytonality. Its power consists mainly in (Auth/orised translation by Fred Rowell//.)
the fact that, far from being a perilous and empirical
leap into the unknown, it is nothing else than a
splendid embellishment, an amazing ornamental
OPERA RECORDS
'variation' brought to the edifice of high tradition
I.-LONDON, PARIS, AND DRESDEN
by a fascinating craftsman, an artist of genius.
The following bars, which have caused so much
BY WAKELING W. DRY
discussion in the past:
Two interesting centuries of performances were
reached during the last season at Covent Garden
in the case of 'Tristan and Isolda' and 'The

Mastersingers.' This reminds us that in the cas

of the more popular operas the number of tim

each has been performed is growing very large.

It is interesting to recall that Wagner began

masterpiece 'Tristan and Isolda' in 1855, and th
years later had completed the first Act. He fini

it at Lucerne, after having been robbed of a sum

publishers, Breitkopf & H~irtel, advanced to him
account of royalties. It is said that ?50 was the p
paid for the copyright of this immortal work. 'Tri
4i 4
waited six years after its completion before it saw
footlights, and was first played under von Btilo
Munich, in I865, withthis
Schorr von Carolsfeld an
are
I' '? r A simply
his wife as the Tristan and the Isolda. It was

Ex.13.
:q

first seen in London, in 1882, at a season of opera i

:q

German-then quite a new departure which Sir

Augustus Harris organized and Richter conducted

Winkelmann being the Tristan and Rosa Sucher th
Isolda. Later that same year these two went to
Bayreuth when it first entered the Festival scheme.

These artists were also the Walther and Eva in the

have
sa
initial performance of 'The Mastersingers,' which was

the case of Ravel. Ever since he concluded his

also first
studies, this musician has been in possession
ofdone
so here during the same Drury Lane
season.
Neither opera seemed to attain much
miraculously perfect a technique that, as
happened
success.
to Bach, Mozart, or Chopin, the perfection
of the
In possithe case of others of the more fam
instrument inevitably assigns limits to the
'Faust' reached its three-hundredth pe
bilities of evolution. All the same, it would be a

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