PETER DONOHOE
in conversation
with R.A. Shapp
I caught up with Peter Donohoe at his U.K. home where he was busy practicing. Our conversation, naturally, focused on his return to the stage at the Kimmel Center on Friday, January 3, with Valentin Radu and the Ama Deus Ensemble for a program of well-known and lesser-known piano works by George Gershwin, and the Maurice Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major. It was the latter work upon which our conversation focused.
RAS: Peter, in preparing for our conversation I read up a bit on the Gershwin miniatures you will perform, and especially on Ravel and his G-Major Concerto. I came across a quote, reputedly by Ravel, that I think can begin this interview for the VoxAmaDeus E-Newsletter: “The most captivating part of jazz is its rich and diverting rhythm. …Jazz is a very rich and vital source of inspiration for modern composers and I am astonished that so few Americans are influenced by it.”
PD: In Paris during World War I, and especially after it, the novelty and freedom of American Jazz was a strong influence on many European and Russian composers: Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Arnold Bax, Benjamin Britten, and even Sergei Rachmaninoff. For instance, when Rachmaninoff left Russia he spent about 15 years as a touring piano soloist and did not compose. During this time he absorbed jazz influences on his extensive travels, including those to the States. Oddly, the influence of French music is noticeably felt in the works of other Europeans, including even Benjamin Britten, but the reverse “national” influences are not to be found in French music.
In Ravel every note is a gem. But I find in his music—in fact in most of the music of this era—an underpinning of very disturbed feelings. European artists had lived through the end of an imperial era. World War I had shattered the world that had produced their artistic environment. And yet the composers of this epoch were capable of producing such beautiful music—like the second movement of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major, which reflects Ravel’s adoration of Mozart. But the anxiety of a destroyed world is also there, which is what I find in the final movement of this concerto. In fact, it was music from the Ravel era that first got me interested in classical music. I found it inspiring that the change in the artistic world was so productive. I don’t feel that way about much of the music of post-World War II-era composers.
RAS: Please speak about the Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major that you will perform with Valentin Radu and the Ama Deus Ensemble orchestra on January 3 in the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater.
But before we get to Peter’s response, first some Music History Notes:
- In 1928, Ravel made a triumphant, 25-city tour of the United States. During this visit Ravel met up with George Gershwin and the fabled interchange between the rising American star and the French master took place. Gershwin asked Ravel to teach him, but Ravel reportedly replied, non!: “Why do you want to be a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin!”
- Ravel wrote the G-Major Piano Concerto over a two-year period from 1929 to 1931, after his jazz-filled American visit. Its premiere occurred in Paris on January 14, 1932, with Ravel conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra. Marguerite Long, for whom the concerto was written, was the soloist; Ms. Long was a highly respected interpreter of the music of Fauré and Debussy. In the United States, debut performances were given simultaneously in Boston’s Symphony Hall and Philadelphia’s Academy of Music on April 22, 1932. The Philadelphia Orchestra was conducted by Leopold Stokowski and Curtis graduate Sylvan Levin was at the piano. The Philadelphia Orchestra has always claimed it gave the first performance of the Ravel G-Major, probably just minutes ahead of Boston!
PD: Compared to other famed piano concertos of the period, the Ravel G-Major is scored for a rather modestly sized orchestra, but with lots of percussion instruments. (And as you know, Richard, I was a timpanist for the beginning of my professional musical career). The large percussion section even includes a whip, whose crack opens the concerto to quite startling effect.
RAS: Ravel reputedly once scoffed that his own Boléro was “a piece for orchestra without music.” Whatever one’s aesthetic judgment may be of this popular work, it is a masterful piece of orchestration. Does this genius carry forward into the Piano Concerto in G Major?
PD: Yes it does. Ravel was a master orchestrator and probably could have taught Gershwin something along these lines. From the start, the G-Major Concerto demonstrates Ravel’s whole-hearted attachment to American jazz influences. As the concerto begins, Ravel blends jazz with the Basque and Spanish sounds of his family heritage and his youth. The first movement also includes a very melodic section that reminds the audience of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (which Valentin and I performed last year and the year before, both in Philadelphia and Romania). Throughout the G-Major Concerto, as Ravel displays his mastery of orchestration, he places horrifically difficult soloistic demands upon the orchestra’s musicians. Each instrument has very, very difficult solos. In fact, every player has something to be very nervous about!
The slow second movement is one of the most beautiful works ever composed—by anyone, including Mozart! In fact, it is very Mozartian in flavor. It opens with a long piano solo, a gorgeous melody, like a processional in a slow three-quarter meter. Then the English horn enters to accompany the piano. And as the movement ends, the melody is played by the English horn with the piano accompanying. This seemingly unending melody gives the instrumentalist no place nor time to breathe. The artist must somehow steal breaths by using the devilishly demanding skill called “circular breathing”.
(By the way, you know pianists work to imitate the singers’ art of legato and breathing in our phrasing. And then we see that many singers try and hide their breathing to demonstrate how long they can sustain a line. It’s sort of like the “circular breathing” I just mentioned.)
Also, every solo written for the other instruments that play in the second movement—these musicians too face the same extreme level of technical demands on their musicianship and nerves. In fact these solos by Ravel are to be found in the “audition piece” study books all musicians must play at major auditions. If you can play the Ravel “licks,” you are very good! That’s how difficult they are.
But the Piano Concerto in G Major is not an in-your-face work like some popular and rousing works we can name. For instance, Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand is technically more difficult than the G-Major. The soloist must sound as if he or she is using both hands, but the right hand never touches the keys. It’s quite a sonic trick and a tour de force for the left hand. But the G-Major is more like chamber music, with its detailed interplay of the instruments. In my opinion, nothing comes closer to the intimate interplay we associate with Mozart and his writing for the winds until Ravel’s G-Major Concerto.
In my work as a judge of piano competitions, I also strongly advise competitions not to list the Ravel G-Major as a concerto that finalists can perform! The demands on the orchestra are just too, too demanding to prepare just in case someone wins and wants to play it. Too much preparation is needed, only to be cancelled! It’s a nightmare—I’ve seen it and heard it!
RAS: Thank you, Peter.