French composer Maurice Ravel first conceptualized the “apotheosis of the Viennese waltz” in 1906, initially planning to call it Wien (Vienna). As his student Manuel Rosenthal recalled, Ravel believed that all composers “had the desire to succeed in writing a very good waltz,” but that “unfortunately, it’s very difficult. Therefore, I have tried to write a symphonic waltz as a tribute to the genius of Johann Strauss [Jr.].” While the project did not initially proceed past the planning stages, Ravel started writing in earnest in 1919 after Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev suggested he produce the work as a ballet during the 1920 summer season of his Parisian company, the Ballets Russes. As Ravel wrote to his friend, Roland-Manuel, “I’m working again at Wien. It’s going great guns. I was able to take off at last, and in high gear.” A few weeks later, he exclaimed, “I’m waltzing madly! I begin to orchestrate on December 31.”
A minor scandal interrupted Ravel’s “mad waltzing” after the French government attempted to award him the Legion of Honor. As he wrote to Roland-Manual, “You can imagine the state I’ve been in. It has had a disastrous effect on my orchestration all through the day…Have you noticed that people who have got the Legion are like morphinomaniacs, who will go to any lengths to make others share their passion, perhaps in order to justify it in their own eyes?” His friend, composer Erik Satie, wrote with great affection, “Ravel refuses the Legion of Honor, but all his music accepts it. What is essential is not so much to refuse the Legion of Honor as not to have deserved it in the first place.”
Ravel finished his orchestration of Wien by the end of March 1920, returning to Paris in late April or early May to participate in a two-piano performance of the work for Diaghilev, several staff members, the choreographer Massine, and fellow composers Poulenc and Stravinsky. As Poulenc later reported, Diaghilev declared the composition a “masterpiece,” adding, “but it’s not a ballet.” Ravel gathered his music, exited the room, and severed all ties with the Ballets Russes. Though its life as a ballet was over, Wien lived on, receiving its first orchestral premiere in France on December 12, 1920. As World War I made the German reference distasteful, Ravel used the French word for “waltz” as its final title, christening the work La Valse. In November 1928, Ida Rubenstein staged it as a ballet at the Paris Opéra.
“I had intended [La Valse] to be a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz,” Ravel explained, “with which was associated in my imagination an impression of a fantastic and fatal sort of dervish’s dance. I imagined this waltz being danced in an imperial palace about the year 1855.” In a note prefacing the score, Ravel paints the picture on stage:
From time to time, through rifts in turbulent clouds, waltzing couples can be glimpsed. The clouds gradually disperse and a huge ballroom is revealed, filled with a great crowd of whirling dancers. Gradually the stage grows lighter. The light of the chandeliers bursts onto the stage.
Ever the consummate orchestrator, Ravel uses all sounds at his disposal to bring to life the story he describes. In the opening, Ravel suggests darkness and “turbulent clouds” with muted double basses playing tremolo, while low harp notes and pizzicato bass imply a dance orchestra far in the distance. Slowly, the couples begin engaging in the “fatal sort of dervishes’ dance” Ravel describes, culminating in a violent end.
