<\/p>
E<\/span>xperiencing the deeply sensuous soundscape of Maurice Ravel\u2019s Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/i>\u00a0reminds us of the crucial impact made by Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev\u2019s Paris-based Ballets Russes around the turn of the last century.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The 20 seasons Diaghilev presented from 1909-29 featured an astonishing array of creative talent, including dancers Anna Pavlova, Ida Rubinstein and Alicia Markova, dancer-chorographers Vaslav Nijinsky, Michel Fokine and L\u00e9onide Massine, and set\/costume designers Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Coco Chanel<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n For many, Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/i> is Ravel\u2019s supreme masterpiece \u2013 a glorious reversal of standard dramatic procedures. When there is little going on to drive the plot forward, Ravel tends to stay languorously in the moment, yet when things spring into action, as in the pirates\u2019 abduction of Chlo\u00e9, he refuses to take the musical bait. Perhaps this, after all, is Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/i>\u2019s most groundbreaking revelation<\/span><\/p>\n Ravel was part of Diaghilev\u2019s plans from the start. Shortly after\u00a0 <\/span>the first Ballets Russes season had got underway, Ravel was in \u2018talks\u2019 with Fokine regarding Daphnis<\/i>, based on an ancient Greek pastoral as realised by French writer Jacques Amyot (1513-93). The problem was that Fokine couldn\u2019t speak a word of French and Ravel, by his own admission, could \u2018only swear in Russian\u2019. Yet by the end of an \u2018insane week\u2019, during which Ravel worked through the night on several occasions, a basic scenario had been thrashed out.<\/span><\/p>\n Diaghilev had originally intended Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/i> to form the centrepiece of the 1910 season, and although the first piano draft was ready by the beginning of May, this was already far too late, leaving the door wide open for Igor Stravinsky to score his first great success with The Firebird<\/i>. This seems to have inspired Ravel to get a move on and by the end of the summer he was hard at work on the orchestration. Yet a year later, shortly after Stravinsky had laid down a second musical gauntlet with Petrushka<\/i>, Ravel was still struggling with the final part of Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/i>, which was now transformed into a dazzling sequence of metrical ingenuity. The orchestration was completed on 5 April 1912, just two months before the planned premiere on 8 June.<\/span><\/p>\n But Ravel\u2019s problems were not over. Fokine, as choreographer, wanted to base his ideas around ancient Greek drawings, whereas Ravel tended towards a romanticised Gallic ideal \u2013 and L\u00e9on Bakst\u2019s sets and costumes chimed more with Fokine\u2019s historical vision than the voluptuousness of Ravel\u2019s music. Fokine was becoming increasingly difficult to work with following several clashes with Diaghilev, who hardly endeared himself to Ravel when, having heard the piano version in rehearsal, he came close to cancelling the whole thing \u2013 the planned four performances were reduced to two.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Ravel\u2019s Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9 <\/i>was inspired by one of the most popular novels of Ancient Greek literature. Written in either the second or third century AD, Longus\u2019s Daphnis and Chloe <\/i>trod new \u2013 and, for some, morally questionable \u2013 ground in depicting developing feelings of love and sexual attraction between young people, and is the author\u2019s only known work. Longus may possibly have been a Roman who lived on Lesbos, where his tale is set, and who chose to write in Greek rather than Latin, but that is speculation rather than established fact \u2013 we know next-to-nothing about him.<\/span><\/p>\n His youthful lovers, however, have certainly made their mark on the literary and artistic world. Directly or indirectly, Daphnis and Chloe have influenced literary works by the likes of Shakespeare, Goethe and George Sand, while the multitude of artists who were inspired to depict their charms has ranged from Bordone in the 16th century to Chagall in the 20th.<\/span><\/p>\n Ravel, meanwhile, is by no means the sole composer to have fallen under their pastoral spell. In 1747, for instance, a starry cast presented the premiere of Boismortier\u2019s Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/i> at Paris\u2019s Acad\u00e9mie Royale de Musique. Philosopher-cum-composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau also began an opera with the same title, leaving it incomplete at his death in 1778, alas. And in 1860, Offenbach conducted his new operetta Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9 <\/i>in Paris; though in this instance, the plot strays some distance away from Longus\u2019s original.<\/span><\/p>\n At least the orchestral musicians proved up to Ravel\u2019s not inconsiderable demands. Despite being scored for vast forces \u2013 including a wind machine and off-stage chorus \u2013 the work\u2019s ingenious scoring was brought pulsatingly to life under the inspired conductorship of Pierre Monteux. Yet notwithstanding a starry cast that included Nijinsky (whose suggestive movements many considered too overtly erotic) and Tamara Karsavina, several dancers struggled (especially in the notorious final dance) to keep in time \u2013 the foot-sore members of the corps de ballet apparently resorted to chanting \u2018Ser-gei Dia-ghi-lev\u2019 to help keep them in 5\/4 time. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n BIS-1850 (hybrid CD\/SACD)<\/p>\n This splendid disc proves again that with Ravel\u2019s orchestral music you go pretty much all the way just by following the instructions on the packet. In this performances of Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/em> Yannick N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin is scrupulous to an unusual degree in obeying the composer\u2019s markings, and especially the little crescendo bursts which might seem, on paper, to be in danger of breaking up the continuity of phrases, but which in practice add life and energy to them.<\/p>\n The playing throughout is of the highest class, from the first horn\u2019s apparently relaxed top Fs (Martin van de Merwe may be going purple in the face, but there\u2019s no audible sign of it) to the vibrato-free flutes that Ravel himself wrote for, the clarinets\u2019 piano playing in the furiously fast \u2018Danse g\u00e9n\u00e9rale\u2019, and the chorus\u2019s impeccable tuning in their\u00a0a cappella<\/em>\u00a0section. The\u00a0Pavane<\/em>\u00a0is tender, elegant and unforced. One correction to the booklet notes: the first performance of this orchestral version was given by Henry Wood in Manchester on 27 February 1911.<\/p>\n We gave this recording the full five stars when we reviewed it<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 09026 61846 2 ADD (1955)<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the earliest stereo recordings, Munch\u2019s 1955 Daphnis still sounds terrific; a certain constriction, by CD standards, is but a small drawback. The performance itself is marvellously alive to both the colours and structure of Ravel\u2019s greatest score. The work sends hi-fi buffs into overdrive; Dutoit\u2019s 1980s Decca version quickly became a CD demonstration disc. But Munch remains a must, even minus the Roussel filler which more generously accompanied this Daphnis on its previous CD outing. (review by Keith Potter)<\/p>\nWhen did Ravel compose Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n
What\u2019s the story behind Ravel\u2019s <\/span>Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9?<\/i><\/span><\/h2>\n
Ravel\u2019s score for <\/span>Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/i><\/span><\/h2>\n
3 of the best recordings of Ravel\u2019s <\/span>Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/i><\/span><\/h2>\n
Netherlands Radio Choir; Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra\/ Yannick N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin<\/h3>\n
New England Conservatory Chorus & Alumni Chorus, Boston<\/h3>\n