How does Ravel create orchestral color?
Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G can sound brilliant, intimate, playful and breathless—sometimes within a few minutes. Its outer movements flash with jazz-inflected rhythms, sparkling percussion and exposed woodwind solos. At the center is a long, quietly unfolding piano melody whose apparent simplicity conceals extraordinary craftsmanship.
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Ravel creates color not merely by adding more instruments, but by combining and separating them in unexpected ways. A melody may pass from the piano to a single woodwind, reappear in a different register or acquire an entirely new character through percussion, harp or muted strings.
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The surrounding works explore other forms of imagination and belief. Ravel’s Pavane looks back toward an imagined courtly past. Humperdinck’s Evening Prayer and Dream Pantomime carry two children from fear into an enchanted sleep. Mendelssohn’s “Reformation” Symphony transforms religious melodies into a public expression of faith.
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Together, the four works ask how music can make memory, dreams and conviction audible.
Maurice Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess)
Despite its title, Ravel’s Pavane is not a funeral lament for a particular princess. It evokes an imagined ceremonial dance from a distant Spanish court—a remembrance of something that may never have existed.
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Originally written for piano in 1899 and orchestrated in 1910, the music moves with deliberate grace. A solitary horn introduces its principal melody, which passes through woodwinds, strings and harp as the orchestral colors subtly change. The effect is less grief than wistful distance: the past observed through the softening light of memory.
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Listen for:
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The opening horn solo
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The stately rhythm beneath the melody
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Harp and pizzicato strings gently sustaining the dance
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The same melody acquiring different colors as it moves through the orchestra
Duration: 6'
Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto in G (M. 83)
A crack of the whip launches Ravel’s concerto into motion. The piccolo introduces a bright, agile melody while the piano answers with glittering runs, rhythmic play and sudden changes of character. Jazz, French clarity and echoes of Basque and Spanish music inhabit the same brilliantly colored world.
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The second movement offers an extraordinary contrast. The piano begins alone with a long, serene melody that seems to unfold without effort. When the orchestra enters, individual woodwinds continue and ornament the piano’s line, creating some of the concerto’s most intimate conversations.
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The finale returns to speed, wit and concentrated energy. Its compact succession of brilliant instrumental gestures makes the entire orchestra seem like an intricate musical machine—quick, precise and continually changing color. The concerto lasts approximately 23 minutes and employs an unusually varied percussion section alongside harp and exposed winds.
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Listen for:
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The whip crack and piccolo at the opening
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Jazz-inflected rhythms in the outer movements
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The piano’s long unaccompanied melody beginning the second movement
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English horn and other woodwinds conversing with the piano
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Harp, percussion and sharply contrasted instrumental combinations
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The breathless momentum of the finale
Duration: 23'
Meet Anthony Ratinov
Anthony Ratinov returns to the Naples Community Orchestra as soloist in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G. A prizewinner at the 2024 Concours musical international de Montréal and the 2023 Busoni International Piano Competition, he is pursuing an Artist Diploma at The Juilliard School in the studio of Robert McDonald.
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Anthony began studying piano at four with his grandmother, Edit Ratinova, a longtime teacher at Moscow’s Gnessin Music School. Before committing fully to music, he earned a degree in chemical engineering from Yale University, graduating with honors.
Intermission
Engelbert Humperdinck:– Evening Prayer and Dream Pantomime from Hänsel und Gretel
Lost in the forest as night descends, Hänsel and Gretel overcome their fear by reciting a simple evening prayer. As they fall asleep, fourteen angels appear in their dream to watch over them.
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Humperdinck surrounds this childhood scene with the rich orchestral language he learned from Wagner. A melody first heard innocently earlier in the opera becomes the heartfelt Evening Prayer and then expands into the luminous Dream Pantomime. What begins as a child’s remembered tune grows into a radiant vision of comfort and protection.
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The music stands precisely where this concert’s themes meet: fairy tale becomes dream, and dream becomes faith.
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Listen for:
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The prayer melody’s quiet simplicity
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The gradual expansion from intimacy to full orchestral warmth
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Woodwinds and strings creating the atmosphere of the nighttime forest
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The increasingly luminous orchestration as the angels appear
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The seamless transition from prayer into dream
Duration: 10'
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5, “Reformation,” Op. 107
Mendelssohn composed the “Reformation” Symphony in 1830 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, a defining document of the Protestant Reformation. Rather than narrating history, he builds the symphony around musical symbols of religious tradition and renewal.
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The solemn opening invokes the atmosphere of an ancient church. Near the end of the introduction, the strings quietly present the rising notes of the “Dresden Amen.” Turbulent music follows, establishing a struggle that will not be resolved until the finale.
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After a lighter second movement and a reflective third, a solo flute introduces Martin Luther’s chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott—“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Mendelssohn gradually draws the entire orchestra into the melody, transforming a familiar hymn into the foundation of a radiant symphonic conclusion.
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Listen for:
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The solemn, churchlike opening
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The softly ascending “Dresden Amen” in the strings
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The lighter, dancing character of the second movement
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The intimate string writing in the third
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The solo flute introducing A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
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The chorale gradually expanding until it fills the orchestra
