Ravel
Concerto For Piano And Orchestra, in G Major

First of all, a few premises.

Keep in mind that anyone not interested in reading it (indeed, it's a bit lengthy for a simple premise) can safely skip ahead to the "(*)" that you'll find further on.

For those who are interested, you can proceed from here (the game can be fun), with the following consideration.

From my not excessively long experience on Debaser, I think I've understood one thing. The reviews that are published daily on the site generally fall into four categories, besides a fifth one consisting of decent nonsense that the Editors, for humanitarian and libertarian spirit, continue to publish anyway (for the times it happened, and also for any other occasions, thanks from me too):

1. The "objective" and "technical" ones, the only ones that truly and exhaustively talk about the reviewed work (e.g., the one by Ghemison at this link: http://www.debaser.it/recensionidb/ID_18943/Distance_My_Demons.htm)
2. The "subjective," "pure fantasy," "visionary," and "impressionist" ones (e.g., see the one by Manluzzo at this link http://www.debaser.it/recensionidb/ID_19340/Picchio_Dal_Pozzo_Picchio_Dal_Pozzo.htm)
3. The "subjective," "existentialist," and "based on small private life stories" ones (e.g., the one by JohnOfPatmos at the following link: http://www.debaser.it/recensionidb/ID_9058/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart_Requiem.htm)
4. The "subjective" and "Celine-esque" ones (e.g., the one by NickGhostDrake at this link: http://www.debaser.it/recensionidb/ID_2540/The_Streets_A_Grand_Dont_Come_For_Free.htm)

In cases 2, 3, and 4, the work to be reviewed is usually, in truth (pardon us the creators of Debaser), just a pretext. There are often only, more or less pathetic, literary ambitions or simply a desire not to feel excluded, trying to surprise and/or tell something to friends, often as compensation for the lack of technical content of the review itself.

As for my particular case, since I don't like feeling excluded either, and since unfortunately, I can't offer stories of wild adventures and multiple encounters that occurred in the stormy sea of life, as required by category 4, and since I don't have the adequate technical skills to contribute to category 1, I almost always find myself lazily oscillating between categories 2 and 3, sometimes mixing them with each other.

It could be argued that technical-musical knowledge cannot be invented (let alone copied from the web), but perhaps, with a bit of imagination, some beautiful stories of "adventurous, crazy, and desperate" life, as compensation for a superficial and amateurish description of a Pink Floyd album, could also be invented, maybe inspired by existing literature. However, since usually, with the exception of God, only those who have truly lived them can write really beautiful stories full of destinies, adventures, and people (I realized this reading Journey to the End of the Night by Celine after having read Silk by Baricco), I decided to surrender to the situation.

(*)

After this long premise, I can now move on to the actual review of this work by Ravel.

When, quite a few years ago now, I first encountered it on an old vinyl lent to me by a university colleague, after the initial listens of the waltz "Adagio assai" of the second movement, I described it, very naively, as "drops of memory". Those slight piano notes could magically transport me to another world where only memories existed, and the present seemed set aside, in silence, waiting for its turn. Everything emerged on tiptoe from the silence.

A gentle waltz rhythm, reminiscent of Erik Satie's Gymnopédies, supported with the lower notes by the left hand, created a white canvas, harmonically not too complex, on which to paint, with the right hand, single melodic strokes, or, in the more "complex" parts, small counterpoints of high notes. In short, an "easiest" piece.

Not too distant, in approach and spirit, from the slightly more famous "Pavane pour une enfant defunte." But in the albeit wonderful Pavane, melancholy was preconceived and uniformly planned throughout the piece. Here it rose unexpectedly, in the form of the second movement, between two seemingly cheerful movements. Now, even though melancholy and losing ourselves in memories in a Leopardi-esque manner is a "simplest" thing (even if we are all a bit ashamed of it), the notes are not diary pages. But I read, I read in those piano and oboe notes, which entered as a sweet melody at a certain point of the "Adagio assai," the face of my past against the backdrop of my present.

The still fresh pain for the loss of a very dear family member, combined with the serene happiness derived from meeting, so much dreamed of during my most intense and troubled adolescent turmoils, the person who would become part of my life for many years to come, were an enzyme of that mysterious process of annihilation in that music.

It was then that I realized something.

Nothing can be missed more by a person than those who loved us in hell, especially if our life has, in the meantime, ended up in paradise. It was a piece by Nick Cave, Lucy, that made me definitively aware of this some time ago. I remembered it again, from this purgatory with glimpses of paradise in which I live today, listening to the second movement of Maurice Ravel's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G Major (AKA "The one with the Bolero").

Good memories to all of you.

PS.

Details about the version of the Concerto in my possession (a "simple" CD from the Masters of the Millennium collection) I don't think are worth providing, nor do I think it's worth talking about the performers and, even if I were capable, the quality of the interpretation. Besides, the version I first listened to more than twenty years ago is not the one I listened to today while writing these notes, and I think they are nevertheless different from each other more or less as my current self is different from my "version" of that time.

As for the other two movements of the Concerto, that is, the first and the third, you will forgive me if I do not talk about them in detail. Besides, they can be seen as the two valves of an oyster. What matters is the pearl they contain together.