Piano Concerto in G (Ravel)
's Piano Concerto in G major, was composed between 1929 and 1931. The concerto is in three movements, with a total playing time of a little over 20 minutes. Ravel said that in this piece he was not aiming to be profound but to entertain, in the manner of Mozart and Saint-Saëns. Among its other influences are jazz and Basque folk music.
The first performance was given in Paris in 1932 by the pianist Marguerite Long, with the Orchestre Lamoureux conducted by the composer. Within months the work was heard in the major cities of Europe and in the US. It has been recorded many times by pianists, orchestras and conductors from all over the world.
Background and first performance
The concerto was Ravel's penultimate composition. He had contemplated a piano concerto, based on Basque themes, in 1906; he returned to the idea in 1913, but abandoned work on the piece in 1914. Fifteen years elapsed before he turned once more to the idea of writing a concerto. He began sketching it in 1929 but throughout his career he had been a slow, painstaking worker, and it was nearly three years before the concerto was finished. He was obliged to put it to one side while he worked to a deadline to write another concerto, the D major, for the left hand, commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein.The biographer Arbie Orenstein writes that while touring the US in 1928, Ravel had been "impressed by its jazz, Negro spirituals and the excellence of its orchestras". Jazz had been popular in Paris since the start of the decade: Ravel had first heard, and enjoyed, it in 1921, and its influence is heard in the violin sonata, completed in 1927, and in the D major piano concerto. The Basque theme mooted in 1906 and 1913 was not wholly abandoned. His colleague Gustave Samazeuilh believed that Ravel drew on his earlier ideas for the outer movements of the G major concerto, and Orenstein notes a Basque influence in the opening theme of the work.
In an interview with the music critic Pierre Leroi, published in October 1931, Ravel said:
He had intended to be the soloist in the first public performance of the new work, but fatigue, poor health and pressure of work led him to offer the premiere to Marguerite Long, to whom he dedicated the concerto. Long, who was known for her performances of the works of Fauré and Debussy had earlier asked Ravel for a new work. She received the completed score on 11 November 1931, and played the concerto at the Salle Pleyel on 14 January 1932, with Ravel conducting the Orchestre Lamoureux.
A few days after the premiere, Ravel and Long began a European tour with the concerto, playing in sixteen cities, starting in Antwerp and including Brussels, Vienna, Bucharest, Prague, London, Warsaw, Berlin, Amsterdam and Budapest. The first North American performances were given on 22 April 1932, in Boston and Philadelphia.
Instrumentation
Ravel told Leroi, "In order not to needlessly weigh down the orchestral texture, I called for a reduced orchestra: the usual strings are joined only by one flute, piccolo, oboe, cor anglais, two bassoons, two horns, one trumpet and one trombone". Orenstein points out that Ravel, or Leroi, forgot to mention two clarinets and the extensive range of percussion instruments.The full tally of instruments, apart from the piano, comprises piccolo, flute, oboe, cor anglais, E clarinet, clarinet in B and A, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in F, trumpet in C, trombone, timpani, triangle, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, tamtam, wood block, whip, harp, 16 violins, 6 violas, 6 cellos, and 4 double basses.