Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte — written in 1899 while he was still a Conservatoire student. There is no actual princess in the title. He said himself that it is not a lament for anyone, but the idea of a little princess dancing a slow dance at some long-ago Spanish court; he chose those French words for their sound. He was later very hard on the piece, calling its form poor and one influence on it too obvious — and it became one of his most played works. Seventy-two bars, five and a half minutes. The full piano score is on screen, note by note.
The words were chosen for their sound, not to commemorate anyone
A pavane is a slow processional dance from the Renaissance. An infante is a princess of the Spanish royal house. Put those together with défunte — dead — and it sounds like a lament for one particular little princess.
Ravel said there was no such princess. He explained that this is not a lament for anyone, but the kind of pavane a little princess might once have danced at the Spanish court; the French words were chosen for their sound — spoken aloud they are a chain of nasals ending in ɑ̃, which is itself distant and cool.
He was later very hard on it. He publicly called its form poor and the influence of an older composer on it too obvious — rare in a composer looking back at his own most popular piece.
He also complained about tempo. He is reported to have said after one performance, in effect, that this is a pavane for a dead princess, not a dead pavane for a princess — meaning it should be slow, but not so slow that it stops. This performance takes the printed 54 to the quarter.
Written in 1899, published in 1900 with a dedication to the Princesse Edmond de Polignac, and orchestrated by Ravel himself eleven years later.
In 1939 this melody was given words and became a pop song
In 1939 this melody became the popular song The Lamp Is Low, words by Mitchell Parish, first recorded by Mildred Bailey and a hit for Tommy Dorsey.
Chet Baker, Doris Day and Ella Fitzgerald all sang it later.
One line walks above an accompaniment that barely moves
The theme is there from the first bar: a single-line melody in the right hand, walking forward step by step, without detours or ornament. Beneath it, steady chords, one to a beat, hardly moving at all.
Almost the entire effect lies in the colour of the harmony. The tune itself is simple, but each change of chord alters how the same line feels — warmer here, suddenly hollow there. Ravel is not using chords to push the music forward; he is using them to tint it.
Two contrasting stretches sit in the middle: one brighter and more active, one lower and thicker. Every time the theme returns it is scored a little differently — an extra voice, or the whole thing lifted an octave.
After the last return the texture thins out and settles on a chord with no push left in it, like a door being closed quietly.
This is the easiest piece of this batch to leave on: an even volume throughout, no sudden loud moments, slow and regular. It suits work, study or the hour before sleep.
Seventy-two bars, and the theme returns three times, never the same
72 bars and 2,026 sounding notes, in 4/4 and G major, with no repeats.
The bar-by-bar counts mark the sections clearly. Up to bar 12 the count sits between 16 and 22, the texture of the theme. Around bar 13 it rises to 34 for the first contrasting stretch.
Near bar 27 it falls back as the theme returns; around bar 37 it reaches 45 and near bar 46 it reaches 49, the thickest writing in the piece, before dropping abruptly to 8 at bar 49.
After bar 58 it holds between 20 and 40 as the theme returns a last time and closes.
The range runs from G1 to A6, a little over 5 octaves, and the shortest note lasts 0.031 seconds, in the decorative runs.
The tempo is not fixed: the score marks more than 40 small changes of speed, so the piece breathes rather than running under a metronome.
The difficulty is not turning it into a funeral
First, the tempo. The commonest fault here is playing it too slowly. The score says 54 to the quarter, which is a slow walk and not a halt, and Ravel complained about exactly this. Too slow, and the melodic line breaks into separate notes.
Second, the melody must really be one line. The right hand often plays the tune and an inner voice at once; the tune has to sit clearly on top with the rest pushed back. This is where the work goes, and why the difficulty is not in the fingers.
Third, the left hand should not assert itself. The accompanying chords need to be flat, light and on time; their job is to tint, not to speak.
Fourth, the pedal. The source marks fifty-three pedal spans, and every harmonic change needs a clean one — the colour is the harmony here, and a blurred change loses it.
We rate this 3 out of 5: the notes are not hard, the control is.
Two others from the same circle
Debussy and Satie were in the same Paris as Ravel, and all three were colouring music with harmony, by different means. Debussy's Clair de lune and both Arabesques, and Satie's three Gymnopédies, are already on this channel.
If you like the way this piece keeps a simple tune over an accompaniment that barely moves, Satie's Gymnopédies take the same arrangement to its most stripped-down.
