Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Cinq melodies populaires grecques

It is difficult to express in words the nature of the author of Bolero and The Spanish Hour better than Vladimir Jankélévitch: “Ravel is more of a Spaniard than Manuel de Falla. He can be an ethnic Jew, like Darius Milhaud, whenever he speaks Hebrew. And when he mounts a Gypsy wagon, he becomes a better Gypsy than Ferenc Liszt.”
And when he composes Greek songs? He only had two days to feel the spirit of Greek singing. The story sounds implausible, and yet is true, as testified by Ravel’s biographer, Viktor Seroff.
For, when a lecture on Greeks and Armenians persecuted by Turks was to be given at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales in Paris in 1904, someone had the idea to add a musical accent. Ravel was given a volume of songs, collected by H. Pernot on Chios, the island of the massacre immortalised in the famous painting by Eugene Delacroix. Ravel undertook this precarious task and fulfilled it on time. The result, the unforgettable cycle of Five Greek Folksongs is something of a pendant to Karol Szymanowski’s Kurpie Songs. The authentic melodies are supported by the piano accompaniment, highly economical, yet highly expressive.

∙ A Song to the Married One is an invocation to a small bird, a partridge, a plea for intercession in love. The folk tune is thrown against the background of the piano, which, in turn, seems to be playing its toccata for itself alone.

∙ Down there by the church is not so much a song as a suddenly interrupted tale of mystery. The piano tries to stand in for a guitar – or some similar local instrument.

∙ What Gallant! is a song of a youth who proposes to a girl, evidently not on his knees. Great is the interplay between the song that goes on in silence and that accompanied by threatening and arrogant arpeggios of the piano.

∙ Song of the Lentisk Gatherers is a moment given to lyrical meditation and expression of longing: “Joy of my heart and soul, you are more beautiful than an angel.” Empty chords and modal intonation define the place on Earth.

∙ Gaily! This song, this little tune, pulses with the joy of life and runs in a rhythm of some unknown dance.

Mieczysław Tomaszewski