La valse

The piece opens in a fog: low strings murmur and fragments of a waltz drift up as if heard through mist, with no clear tune yet in focus. Gradually the orchestra clarifies, and a real Viennese waltz melody blooms, lush and confident, passed among strings and winds. From there Ravel builds a sequence of waltz tunes, each brighter and more ornate than the last, with harps, glockenspiel, and shimmering string figures adding sparkle. Listen for moments where the music seems to catch itself, hesitate, or lurch, as if a grand ballroom scene is starting to come apart at the seams. Brass interjections grow sharper and more insistent as the piece goes on, cutting through the swirl of strings. There is no pause for a middle section or a slow movement, the whole fifteen minutes as one continuous, accelerating arc. Near the end the waltz rhythm itself becomes distorted, off balance, almost violent, and the once-elegant dance is pushed to a crashing, chaotic final page. First time listeners often notice how a piece that begins in genteel elegance ends in something closer to collapse, the same three beat pulse throughout but transformed from grace to menace.

Ravel began sketching a tribute to the Viennese waltz around 1906 under the working title "Wien," and completed the orchestral score in 1920, in the aftermath of the First World War. He had originally conceived it for the impresario Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, but Diaghilev rejected it as unsuitable for dance, reportedly calling it a portrait of a ballet rather than a ballet itself, which strained the two men's relationship. Ravel instead introduced the work as a concert piece, and it was first performed in Paris in December 1920 with Camille Chevillard conducting. Despite its rocky start, "La valse" quickly entered the orchestral repertoire and has since been staged as ballet many times over, even though Diaghilev never took it up. Many listeners have heard in its darkening, disintegrating waltz an echo of a European world that the war had shattered.