Maurice Ravel

Born: December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany
Died: March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria

Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2

• Composed: 1909–12
  
• Premiere: June 8, 1912 in Paris, coducted by Pierre Monteux
  
• Instrumentation: 2 flutes (incl. piccolo), piccolo, alto flute, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, bells, castanets, crash cymbals, military drum, side drum, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tambour, tambourine, triangle, 2 harps, celeste, strings
• CSO notable performances: First: (Tour) March 1906, Toronto, Canada, Fritz Reiner conducting; (CSO Subscription) November 1925, Fritz Reiner conducting. Most Recent: September 2018, Louis Langrée conducting. Recording: 2004 Ravel: Suite No. 2 from Daphnis & Chloe, Pavane pour une infante défunte, La valse, Ma mère l’Oye, Bolero, Paavo Järvi conducting.
• Duration: approx. 18 minutes

The Ballet Russe descended on Paris in 1909 with an impact still reverberating through the worlds of art, music and dance. Its brilliant impresario, Sergei Diaghilev, went shopping among the artistic riches of the French capital, and soon had gathered together the most glittering array of creative talent ever assembled under a single banner: Falla, Picasso, Nijinsky, Fokine, Bakst, Monteux, Stravinsky, Massine, Debussy, Matisse, Prokofiev, Pavlova, Poulenc, Milhaud. Early in 1910, Diaghilev approached Maurice Ravel with a scenario by Fokine for a ballet based on a pastoral romance derived from the writings of the 5th-century Greek sophist Longus. In his 1928 autobiographical sketch, Ravel wrote:

I was commissioned by the director of the Russian Ballet to write Daphnis et Chloé, a choreographic symphony in three movements. My aim in writing it was to compose a vast musical fresco, and to be not so much careful about archaic details as loyal to my visionary Greece, which is fairly closely related to the Greece imagined and depicted by French painters at the end of the 18th century. The work is constructed like a symphony, with a very strict system of tonality, formed out of a small number of themes whose development assures homogeneity to the work.

Ravel’s refined view of Daphnis through the eyes of Watteau was at variance with the primitive one held by others on the production staff, especially Léon Bakst, who was doing the stage designs. There were many squabbles and delays in mounting the production, and, as a ballet, Daphnis had a lukewarm reception at its premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on June 8, 1912. Ravel’s score, however, was greeted with enthusiasm, perhaps because the orchestra was the only facet of the production that was completely prepared. The music immediately entered the repertory of the world’s orchestras and has remained one of the most popular of 20th-century scores, though the ballet is rarely seen.

One of the marks of a great musical work is the way in which it creates and envelops the listener in its own characteristic world. Ravel, through his masterful orchestration, sensitivity to color and atmosphere, and careful construction, created such a sound world in his Daphnis et Chloé. Ravel’s world is one of elegant sensuality and dream-like refinement, one which grew from the composer’s idealized vision not so much of Greece as of the court of Louis XIV at Versailles and its precise etiquette governing life and love. The young lovers of the ballet are not ancient primitives, but pink-cheeked shepherds who have stepped from a delicate canvas of Fragonard to amuse Le Roi Soleil. In considering the wondrous effect of Daphnis, Jean Cocteau wrote, “It is one of those works that land in the heart like a meteorite, from a planet whose laws will remain forever mysterious and beyond our understanding.” Igor Stravinsky called it “one of the most beautiful products of French music.”

Daphnis et Chloé opens in a meadow bordering a sacred wood on the island of Lesbos. Greek youths and maidens enter with wreaths and flowers to place at the altar of the Nymphs as the shepherd Daphnis descends from the hills. His lover, Chloé, crosses the meadow to meet him. The girls are attracted to the handsome Daphnis and dance seductively around him, inciting Chloé’s jealousy. Chloé, in her turn, becomes the object of the men’s advances, particularly a crude one from the clownish goatherd Dorcon. Daphnis’ jealousy is now aroused and he challenges Dorcon to a dancing contest, the prize to be a kiss from Chloé. Dorcon performs a grotesque dance and he is jeered by the onlookers. Daphnis easily wins Chloé’s kiss with his graceful performance. The crowd leads Chloé away, leaving Daphnis alone to lapse into languid ecstasy. Daphnis’ attention is suddenly drawn to the clanging of arms and shouts of alarm from the woods. Pirates have invaded and set upon the Greeks. Daphnis rushes off to protect Chloé, but she has been captured.

In Scene Two, set on a jagged seacoast, the brigands enter their hideaway laden with booty. Chloé, hands bound, is led in. She pleads for her release. When the chief refuses, the sky grows dark and the god Pan, arm extended threateningly, appears upon the nearby mountains. The frightened pirates flee, leaving Chloé alone.

Scene Three is again set amid the hills and meadows of the ballet’s first scene. It is sunrise. Herdsmen arrive and tell Daphnis that Chloé has been rescued. She appears and throws herself into Daphnis’ arms. The old shepherd Lammon explains to them that Pan has saved Chloé in remembrance of his love for the nymph Syrinx. In gratitude, Daphnis and Chloé re-enact the ancient tale, in which Syrinx is transformed into a reed by her sisters to save her from the lustful pursuit of Pan, who then made a flute from that selfsame reed—the pipes of Pan—upon which to play away his longing. Daphnis and Chloé embrace tenderly and join in the joyous dance that ends the ballet.

From the complete ballet, Ravel extracted two Suites comprising some two-thirds of the work’s length. The Second Suite parallels the action of the ballet’s final Scene: Daybreak, Pantomime of the adventure of Pan and Syrinx, and the concluding General Dance.

—Dr. Richard E. Rodda