The Prix de Rome in Ravel's time was a coveted honor bestowed by the Conservatoire de Paris, bringing three years' residence at the swank Villa Medici in Rome, and Ravel, like other young composers, took his best shot at getting it. He placed third one year and totally failed in two other tries. The annotations by Gérard Condé for this Chandos release delve into various political reasons for the failure, but the main issue seems to have been that the heavy choral cantata form specified by the prize rules did not fit what ...
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The Prix de Rome in Ravel's time was a coveted honor bestowed by the Conservatoire de Paris, bringing three years' residence at the swank Villa Medici in Rome, and Ravel, like other young composers, took his best shot at getting it. He placed third one year and totally failed in two other tries. The annotations by Gérard Condé for this Chandos release delve into various political reasons for the failure, but the main issue seems to have been that the heavy choral cantata form specified by the prize rules did not fit what was distinctive about Ravel's style. Is there music in these works from the first half of the 1900s decade that prefigures what is beloved about Ravel? Yes, but it is intermittent. Consider the shorter pieces, especially L'Aurore, with its exotic tenor solo and its climax generated, like that of Bolero, by expanding outward from a central melodic cell. Of the three larger cantatas, all imitating models like Massenet and Fauré, Alcyone is perhaps the strongest, with a melodic facility...
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