Piano Concerto in G major

This concerto opens with the literal crack of a whip before the piccolo and strings launch into a jaunty, jazz-inflected theme, Ravel wanted the work to be 'lighthearted and brilliant, and not aim at profundity or dramatic effects,' modelling it on Mozart and Saint-Saëns rather than the heavy Romantic tradition. The outer movements draw on Basque folk colour and American jazz, which Ravel absorbed during a 1928 tour of North America where he spent evenings listening to Duke Ellington and the Harlem jazz scene. The slow middle movement is the striking contrast: it opens with a long, unaccompanied piano melody that Ravel reportedly composed 'bar by bar,' with the simple pulsing accompaniment running throughout in a different metre from the melody, creating a quiet rhythmic tension beneath the surface.

What to listen for

In the second movement, the piano carries the melody alone for an extended opening stretch before the orchestra enters at all, then, midway through, the English horn takes up the same long melody while the piano shifts to a gently moving accompanying role, reversing the expected relationship between soloist and orchestra. In the finale, notice how the movement ends with exactly the same four chords with which it began, a deliberate symmetry that gives the headlong Presto a wry, clipped close rather than a buildup to a climax.

Recommended rendition

Martha Argerich with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon, 1982) has been frequently cited for the clarity and rhythmic precision Argerich brings to both the outer movements and the long-breathed melody of the Adagio.

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