Miroirs (Mirrors)

The title means night moths. Ravel marks the opening Très léger, very light. Short chromatic figures pass between the hands, often in double notes, and rising runs take them upwards before a pause divides the phrase.

The dedication names Léon-⁠Paul Fargue, a poet in Ravel’s circle of friends, the Apaches. Each of the five Miroirs belongs to someone in that circle. The dedicatees include poets, musicians and the painter Paul Sordes.

The flutter stops. In B♭ minor, a slow melody moves above detached bass notes, in bars of five beats alternating with bars of three. Ravel marks it sombre et expressif (dark and expressive), and the right hand holds a chord.

In the autobiographical sketch he dictated in 1928, Ravel said that Miroirs marked a change in his harmony large enough to disconcert the musicians most accustomed to his manner. Noctuelles opens the set.

The first tempo returns softly. The quick figure starts low in the keyboard over a repeated bass note, rises, and breaks into fragments of the slower song.

After another pause, the opening figure returns at pp. Ravel shortens it this time. The passage moves quickly to the slower closing chords.

Presque lent, almost slow. Chords sound over a low bass, marked lointain, distant. The first tempo then returns for a few bars of high repeated chords and a short falling phrase.

A high B♭ repeats very softly, then turns into a short flourish. The left hand rests for three bars. When it enters, its quavers move in threes against the upper part’s twos.

Oiseaux tristes is dedicated to Ricardo Viñes. On 6 January 1906, at the Salle Érard in Paris, he gave the first performance of all five Miroirs.

E♭ is rewritten as D♯, the same piano key, and the music moves to E major. A rolled chord opens a fuller passage. High calls sound forte and are then repeated softly, marked lointain (far away).

In dictated notes, Ravel called Oiseaux tristes the first of the five pieces in date and, in his view, the most typical. He described it as “birds lost in the torpor of a very dark forest in the hottest hours of summer”.

Ravel drops the bar lines for a cadenza. Slurred runs climb and turn over a slower line in the bass. The marking is Lent, presque ad lib., and even the fastest notes stay at ppp.

The music returns to E♭ minor over a low held E♭. Ravel marks the passage Encore plus lent, sombre et lointain (dark and distant). Short calls sound above the bass and fade under perdendo.

The marking is D’un rythme souple — très enveloppé de pédales (a supple rhythm, wrapped in pedal). The left hand plays rising and falling figures beneath slow, tied notes in the right. Ravel writes two metres together, 6/8 and 2/4.

Ravel dedicated Une barque sur l’océan to Paul Sordes, a painter in his circle of friends, Les Apaches. Each of the five pieces in Miroirs carries the name of one of the Apaches.

Low bass notes begin a long crescendo. The right hand plays chromatic runs while the left strikes deep notes and rolled chords. Both hands then cover the full width of the keyboard, with quieter bars between the loud passages.

After the runs, a glissando leads into a phrase marked très expressif. The bass arpeggios move more slowly. The piano plays a long melodic line, and small surges still break through it.

Ravel explained the title Miroirs with a line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The eye sees not itself / But by reflection, by some other things.” In 1928 he accepted the label “impressionist” only by analogy.

Three flats replace the opening’s three sharps. High tremolos marked pianissimo alternate with runs through both hands, marked fortissimo.

The three-sharp signature returns. High in the right hand a quick figure circles, pianissimo and sans nuances, “without shading”. Below it the left hand plays an expressive melody that rises and falls on its own.

The high figure repeats while the notes beneath it thicken into chords. Ravel marks augmentez peu à peu. The hands spread apart again, and the figure runs into another sweep across the full keyboard.

From 2 June to the end of July 1905 Ravel cruised the canals of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany on the yacht Aimée, owned by Alfred and Misia Edwards. The painter Pierre Bonnard was among the guests. Miroirs was first played in January 1906.

The writing moves into the lower register, with both staves in the bass clef. A right-hand tremolo sounds above rolling bass notes, and Ravel marks it très fondu — thoroughly blended.

The opening ripple returns beneath tied notes in the right hand, now for only a few phrases. The arpeggios rise and fall, and the piece ends on a rolled chord marked pppp.

The title means a dawn song of a jester. The piano opens with tightly rolled chords, marked sec, imitating a strummed guitar, with sharp bass notes beneath. The dance is in 6/8, and Ravel repeatedly interrupts its rhythm.

The right hand plays a rapidly repeated note, with short scales running off from it. The left hand keeps to a spare accompaniment below.

The dance stops under a fermata. A single melodic line follows, Plus lent and expressif en récit, with the left hand silent. Strummed chords interrupt it repeatedly at the original tempo.

Ravel explained that his clown, the gracioso, was humorous but had an edge to him, and was less well meaning than Beaumarchais’s Figaro. Roger Nichols noted that the drier tone and lighter action of the Érard pianos Ravel favoured would sharpen the “guitar” chords.

Ravel dedicated this movement to Calvocoressi, a critic and musicologist in his circle of friends. In Miroirs, Calvocoressi received the Spanish jester and Ricardo Viñes the sad birds.

The song descends from its high chords and the bass holds A. Ravel writes sans ralentir, without slowing. The repeated note restores the pulse of the dance before the dry guitar chords return.

The strummed chords return at ppp over E♭ in the bass, marked très sec et bien rythmé. Repeated notes and glissandos follow.

Another dry chord stops under a fermata. Quiet staccato chords follow over low repeated notes, and the song does not return. The piano moves to a final rush to D major, played without slowing at the end.

The Ballets russes danced Alborada, in Ravel’s orchestration, at London’s Alhambra Theatre in July 1919 as part of Les jardins d’Aranjuez, with Chabrier’s Menuet pompeux and Fauré’s Pavane. Paris had heard the orchestral version first, on 17 May 1919, under Rhené-⁠Baton with the Pasdeloup Orchestra.

High G♯ octaves sound in alternation. Soft sextuplets begin beneath them, and then repeated fourths enter. Each layer moves at its own speed and covers its own range of the keyboard, and the music is written on three staves that keep the layers apart.

In June 1905 Ravel wrote to his pupil Maurice Delage from the Netherlands: “Yesterday, an excursion to Alkmaar: a cheese market with carillons ringing ceaselessly.” He also described windmills turning as far as he could see. The piece is dedicated to Delage.

A fermata holds the first bells. The piano continues très calme, with slow chords above low octaves. The tolling fourths from the opening carry across the join and continue while the other bells change.

Largement chanté — broadly sung. A long melody begins among the repeated bell figures. Its phrases move from note to note over the sustained low bass, and it is the broadest melodic writing in the piece.

Ravel told the pianist Robert Casadesus that the piece came from the bells ringing at noon in Paris. On the piano, the chimes overlap high above the slow bass.

The piano roll of this piece, recorded in 1922, is sold as Ravel’s own playing. Ravel admitted that he hired a better pianist for some of the rolls, but Ronald Woodley judged that for this one the probability favours the composer. Roy Howat heard “moments of mild anarchy between the hands”.

The melody line ends, and a chord is held under a fermata, pp. The key signature of four sharps returns with the earlier très calme chords, and the low octaves continue.

The opening carillon returns above a deep rolled chord. Ravel identified this great bell to the pianist Henriette Faure as La Savoyarde. It sounds four times, each softer than the last, and the final bar is a rest under a fermata.