Ravel's Miroirs: text and context
Date
2008-04-21T11:25:48Z
Authors
Murdoch, Heloise Marie
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Abstract
Abstract
This research report examines Maurice Ravel’s piano pieces, Miroirs (1905), as
texts. These five piano pieces draw on a wide range of sources and conventions
across nearly two centuries and yet are utterly integrated in their expression. In
the Miroirs, Ravel exhibits a fascinating meshing of historical and contemporary
influences that range from Mozart to Chabrier and Fauré. The pieces are also
interestingly and very personally related to their cultural and social contexts, in
that each individual piece was dedicated to a member of the Apaches, a group of
young artists and intellectuals residing in Paris of whom Ravel was himself one.
The research examines the significance of the Miroirs both within Ravel’s own
and the broader twentieth-century repertoire.
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Keywords
Ravel, Miroirs, French piano, music, Impressionism, twentieth-century pianism