The language of enchantment : childhood and fairytale in the music of Maurice Ravel.

Abstract

No human condition is invested with more diverse and complex perceptions, ideals and emotions than childhood. Although it has long been accorded a particular significance in the context of his life and work, Maurice Ravel’s conception of childhood, together with the musical language through which it found expression, has never been the subject of a detailed, extended study. This thesis, therefore, explores the roles and realisations of childhood in Ravel’s music, arguing that they were inextricably linked with the language, traditions and idioms of the literary fairytale – an hypothesis Ravel himself supported when he wrote that his intention in his fairytale-based Ma mère l'Oye was to evoke ‘the poetry of childhood’. Through a study of these intertwined themes, the thesis develops new analytical and interpretative approaches to three major works: the piano duet suite Ma mère l’Oye (1910), the Trois chansons for mixed choir (1914-1915), and the opera L’Enfant et les sortilèges (1919-1925). These works span a fifteen-year period that saw a decisive evolution in Ravel’s compositional style, and was crucially impacted by the great cataclysm of the First World War. Ravel deliberately aligned his music with the traditions of the fairytale through the creation and expressive manipulation of musical and dramatic structure, language, gesture and perspective. One may trace the voice and presence of the storyteller in Ma mère l’Oye, a work dedicated to two children for whom Ravel was a favourite companion and teller of fairytales. L’Enfant et les sortilèges presents a detailed portrait of its eponymous Child, set within a fairytale in which traditional elements combine with a complexity of dramatic, musical and psychological construction that invokes the zeitgeist of the 1920s. The shadows of real events intrude more disturbingly upon the Trois chansons, whose distorted fairytale narratives represent a direct and personal response to the War. In its balance of musical interpretation and explication, supported by a clearly defined historical and philosophical context, the study yields new insights into a central facet of Ravel’s musical identity.