Beschreibung
From my in-progress collection of intermediate and late-intermediate piano compositions in Impressionist styles, this is an homage to Maurice Ravel's piano writing as shown in his Pavane pour une infante défunte and the Pavane from the Mother Goose suite.
It introduces techniques that Ravel frequently uses but that less-than-advanced students rarely encounter in repertoire at their level: sometimes-awkward hand and arm crossings, extended tertian chords (9th/11th/13th voicings), large rolled chords, and some modal writing, to name a few, while still maintaining a clarity of voicing that students will find in Ravel's own music. All of these can be disorienting to students encountering Ravel's music for the first time, so students will benefit from Ravel-preparatory repertoire, like this piece, that introduces these techniques.
Since most currently published collections of Impressionist-style pedagogical repertoire focus on Claude Debussy's language, this piece is a welcome addition to the student piano literature and will help bridge the gaps between standard teaching repertoire and pieces like Ravel's Pavanes, while also exposing students to a new, rich, and inviting tonal language that will inspire them to seek out more of Ravel's compositions.
Note that the audio is from a Sibelius-generated preview. With two active Zoom music teachers in the household, noise-free time for recording acoustically is at a premium! Please note that certain details like rolled chords are not observed in the audio preview. (This is a side effect of the aftermarket font family I use to engrave these.)