Daphnis & Chloé: the programme

Mountains against a sea of blue

The contemporary composer Guillaume Connesson (1970) strives in his works to achieve a balance between innovation and accessibility. A French music journalist described it as follows: “Connesson dares to prioritise pragmatism before idealism. He gives precedence to audience enjoyment over vain musical experiments.” Underlying his works is a broad musical taste that ranges from composers like Couperin, Wagner and Debussy to modern names such as Dutilleux, Messiaen and Reich. Connesson also does not shy away from more popular genres like jazz, funk, pop and film music.

Connesson wrote his Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in 2008 at the request of the cellist Jérôme Pernoo, who also played its premiere in Paris. By his own account, he drew inspiration for the work from the ice blocks in Antarctica: “The first movement is like granite, almost like a block of ice, while the second movement is very fluid and airy. The third movement is a slow meditation that the makes the cello sing, a paradise garden in the Hesperides in which the soloist’s long melody alternates with the sound of a swarm of birds and insects in the xylophone and flutes. In the middle, there is a remarkable fragment with restrained pizzicatos on the glass harmonica, as an atmospheric light phenomenon. After a cadenza by the soloist in the fourth movement, the finale bursts into a grand, energetic dance.”

Jessie Montgomery (1981) also had a natural phenomenon in mind when he wrote Starburst. The American composer and violinist grew up in a milieu where a wide range of musical styles was constantly heard. Her music is thus subject to many different influences, from African American spirituals to modern improvisation. Starburst was commissioned by the Sphinx Organization, of which she is also a member as a violinist. She describes the work as follows: “This short work for string orchestra is a visual interplay of rapidly changing musical colours. Sudden outbursts alternate with soft and airy melodies, in an attempt to create a multidimensional sound landscape.”

Ravel: Daphnis & Chloé

In 1909, the young but highly promising Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev to compose a new work for Les Ballets Russes. The young man opted for a Greek love story, and the result elicited the famous remark from Diaghilev: “Ravel, it is a masterpiece, but it is not a ballet. It is a painting of a ballet!” And so it was. The opening scene, Lever du jour, is one of the finest tone painting of sunrise in the history of music.

Alongside bucolic scenes of love, this painterly programme is enlivened by numerous natural tableaux: from moonlight and starry skies to heavenly birds and Antarctic landscapes.

Symphonie choréographique

Ravel only wrote two ‘real’ orchestral works – the Shéhérazade overture and the Rapsodie Espagnole. His other works for orchestra are arrangements of chamber music or were written as ballets. His orchestral suites also take their origin in the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, which Ravel composed between 1909 and 1912 at the request of Sergei Diagilev for the first season of his Ballets Russes in Paris. The scenario was the work of the choreographer Mikhail Fokine, who based it on the pastoral romance by the Greek poet Longus. The story is set in second-century Arcadia and outlines the idyllic love story between the shepherd Daphnis and the lovely shepherdess Chloé. When she is abducted by pirates, Daphnis goes in search of her. He falls unconscious, and during his sleep, Chloé is freed by Pan. By daybreak, the lovers are reunited.

The ballet is one of Ravel’s most extensive works – in addition to a gigantic orchestra, there is also a choir that appears both on stage and backstage – and he spent almost three years working on it. The premiere was postponed repeatedly, partly due to a difference in views between Ravel and Fokine. Ravel had a grandiose musical fresco in mind, analogous to the Greek landscapes by the French painters of the eighteenth century, but that did not fit with the archaic conception of the Russian choreographer. Moreover, the dancers were unhappy with the short rehearsal time and the difficult rhythms in the finale.

Even before the premiere on 8 June 1912, Ravel ha reworked the first two scenes of the ballet into a first orchestral suite. The second suite dates from after the premiere of the ballet, and opens with the well-known Lever du jour, when the two lovers find each other again at sunrise. In this movement, Ravel composed one of the most poetic musical depictions of a scene in nature: the crackling of wood yields to bird songs, which in turn give way to a passionate melody. Out of gratitude, in the subsequent the lovers perform scenes from the history of the gods Pan and Syrinx. The whole work ends in a dance of praise to the gods, performed by the dancers in 5/4 rhythm.

With Daphnis et Chloé, Ravel did not have a traditional ballet in mind – he himself described the work as a ‘symphonie choréographique’ [choreographic symphony] and found the colour and mood were the most important – and in so doing, he met with quite a bit of resistance. One of the members of the audience at the premiere was Pierre Lalo, who found the ballet was lacking an essential element, notably rhythm. Stravinsky, on the other hand, was a big fan: “It is not only Ravel’s best work but also one of the most beautiful products in all of French music”.

Colour in a misty landscape

Another pearl of music history is Ravel’s song Trois beaux oiseaux du paradis [Three beautiful birds of paradise]out of one of his few choral works, Trois Chansons. He wrote it in 1914-15, just before he left for the front. Ravel dedicated the work to Paul Painlevé, the mathematician and prime minister between 1917 and 1925, who also served in the army.

Ravel, along with Debussy, Franck and Fauré, was one of the most important sources of inspiration for the Belgian composer Joseph Jongen (1873-1953). That is certainly evident in the latter’s Clair de Lune, an explicit tip of the hat to Debussy’s work of the same name. Jongen wrote the original composition for piano, but the orchestral version also exudes a magical and calm atmosphere.

Commentary by Aurélie Walschaert