Ravel’s Programmatic Impulse

Abstract

My essay addresses a central paradox inherent in the notion of program music, which may be termed the “meaning gap.” By this, I mean the potential difference in meaning or signification between, on the one hand, music’s representation of a narrative, text, title, idea, etc.; and, on the other hand, music’s ability to generate and connote its own meaning(s). As primary case study I offer “Les entretiens de la Belle et la Bête” from Ma mère l’Oye. My exploration of this movement takes as its point of departure a central analogy: that the potential gap between “external” representation and “internal” connotation may be interpreted as analogous to the gap between conscious and subconscious mentation. Such a gap is hinted at in Berlioz’s own account of the program for the Symphonie Fantastique: »The aim of the program is by no means to copy faithfully what the composer has tried to present in orchestral terms, as some people seem to think; on the contrary, it is precisely in order to fill in the gaps which the use of musical language unavoidably leaves in the development of dramatic thought, that the composer has had to avail himself of written prose to explain and justify the outline of the symphony«.While Berlioz’s statement posits one sort of gap at the heart of the program/music relationship, it becomes more relevant to Ravel’s music to consider the gap from the other direction and reverse Berlioz’s terms: thus the composer avails himself of the unique structural and expressive resources of music to connote their own meaning, in order to fill in the gaps which the limitations of the programmatic source unavoidably leave in the development of dramatic thought.

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