21. The song 'Sur l’herbe' was written while Ravel was battling charges of ‘debussysme’ and plagiarism in the musical press; that’s probably why the last line, ‘Hé! bonsoir la Lune!’ (‘Good evening, Moon!’) cheekily quotes Debussy’s ‘Clair de lune’. #Ravel150 - ThreadSky

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ekilpatrick.bsky.social • 21 days ago

21. The song 'Sur l’herbe' was written while Ravel was battling charges of ‘debussysme’ and plagiarism in the musical press; that’s probably why the last line, ‘Hé! bonsoir la Lune!’ (‘Good evening, Moon!’) cheekily quotes Debussy’s ‘Clair de lune’. #Ravel150

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ekilpatrick.bsky.social•21 days ago

22. In his first opera, L’heure espagnole, Ravel not only parodies Wagnerian leitmotifs, but uses ‘Tristan’ chords as a deliberate comic shorthand (‘thwarted desire!’). #Ravel150

ekilpatrick.bsky.social•21 days ago

23. When the director of the Opéra-Comique rejected his opera Ravel wrote, ‘I realise now that the least innocent foible of Carmen, Manon, Chrysis or Queen Fiamette was picking their nose too much.’ #Ravel150

ekilpatrick.bsky.social•21 days ago

24. An influential Parisian hostess intervened to get L’heure espagnole onstage: ‘Her first impulse was to write to Carré’, Ravel writes; ‘After mature consideration she decided nevertheless to follow her impulse, and the most pungent exchange of correspondence followed.'

ekilpatrick.bsky.social•21 days ago

25. Ravel gave Vaughan Williams composition lessons in 1908, his assignments including orchestrating passages of Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov: ‘He showed me how to orchestrate in points of colour rather than lines’, #RVW recalled. #Ravel150

ekilpatrick.bsky.social•21 days ago

26. Mimi Godebska, for whom Ravel wrote Ma mère l’Oye, recalled that ‘Of all my parents’ friends I had a predilection for Ravel because he used to tell me stories that I loved. I used to climb on his knee and indefatigably he would begin, “Once upon a time…”’ #Ravel150

ekilpatrick.bsky.social•21 days ago

27. Ravel was a staunch advocate of #Satie: in 1912 he wrote to René Lenormand to advise that his draft treatise on contemporary harmony had ‘omitted the composer who should perhaps hold the most important place: Erik Satie’. #Ravel150

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