THE SENSUAL SURFACE
Ravel’s eclecticism was more innocent and accommodating than Debussy’s probably because it proceeded from a more optimistic, even hedonistic, view of art and its purposes. If Debussy’s primary poetic counterpart was Mallarmé, and Fauré’s was Verlaine, then Ravel’s was surely his friend Henri de Régnier (1864–1936), one of the most prominent younger Symbolists, whose verses abound with the imagery of joyful sensuality. Ravel only set one poem of Régnier’s to music, Les grands vents venus d’outremer (“The great winds that come from over the sea”; 1907); but on two occasions he used lines by Régnier as epigraphs for instrumental pieces. Jeux d’eau (“Fountains”; 1901), dedicated “to my dear master, Gabriel Fauré,” is prefaced by a quotation from Régnier’s Fête d’eau (“Water holiday”), entered in the manuscript in the poet’s own hand: Dieu fluvial riant de l’eau qui le chatouille, “A river god laughing at the water that is tickling him.” And the piano suite Valses nobles et sentimentales (“Noble and sentimental waltzes”; 1911), with its title borrowed from Schubert, is headed by a line from one of Régnier’s novels in praise of le plaisir délicieux et toujours nouveau d’une occupation inutile, “the delightful and ever-renewed pleasure of a useless occupation.”
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 2 Getting Rid of Glue." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2019. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-002009.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 2 Getting Rid of Glue. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 24 Apr. 2019, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-002009.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 2 Getting Rid of Glue." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 24 Apr. 2019, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-002009.xml
