8 Valses nobles et sentimentales

The piece is a chain of eight short waltzes, each with its own character, played with only the briefest of pauses between them, followed by an epilogue that looks back on what came before.

The first waltz opens abruptly with sharp, almost jarring chords before settling into a lopsided dance rhythm. The second is slower and more tender, a waltz that seems to hesitate before committing to its melody. The third is light and skittering, while the fourth grows more assertive, with a heavier tread. The fifth has a graceful, almost old-world charm. The sixth is brisk and playful. The seventh is the largest and most passionate of the set, swelling to the biggest climax before it. The eighth waltz is slow and shadowed.

After the eighth waltz, an epilogue arrives: fragments of the earlier waltzes drift past one another quietly, as if remembered rather than danced. Listen for melodies from the first, fourth, and fifth waltzes reappearing in softer, more distant guises before the piece fades to a hushed close. This closing return is the moment first-time listeners often find most affecting, since it recasts everything heard before as a kind of memory.

Ravel composed these waltzes for solo piano in 1911, at the request of a Paris music society that asked several composers to submit anonymous pieces for a concert where the audience would guess the authors. Few guessed correctly, since the harmonies sounded unlike the Ravel audiences knew. He took his title from Schubert, who had written sets of waltzes called "noble" and "sentimental," and Ravel later said he meant to follow Schubert's example of stringing together a chain of short dances. The piece was first heard as a ballet score before Ravel orchestrated it in 1912, and both the piano and orchestral versions have remained in the repertoire, prized for the way they treat the waltz as a vehicle for shifting mood rather than pure dance music.