Ravel – Concerto in G / d’Indy – Symphony on a French Mountain Air

Description

The two works have a point, if only one point, in common – each is a free orchestral work developed through colour variety.  Ravel cultivates none of the earlier composer’s substantial sonorities and swelling dramatic proclamations.  He treats the piano as a crisp percussive instrument, and as an integral part of a staccato and luminously clear orchestra.

D’Indy once remarked that the end of his Symphony expresses “the light-heartedness” of the mountains which he always loved.

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