Program Notes: Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé

CLASSICS 2022/23

RAVEL’S DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ

KEVIN JOHN EDUSEI, conductor

YUMI HWANG-WILLIAMS, violin

COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS, DUAIN WOLFE, director

Friday, January 13, 2023 at 7:30pm

Saturday, January 14, 2023 at 7:30pm

Sunday, January 15, 2023 at 1:00pm

Boettcher Concert Hall

BOULANGER D'un matin de printemps (Of A Spring Morning)

SZYMANOWSKI Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 35

I. Vivace assai II. Tempo comodo – Andantino III. Vivace scherzando IV. Poco meno – Allegretto V. Vivace (Tempo I)

— INTERMISSION —

RAVEL Daphnis et Chloé

Tableau I (Une prairie а la lisiére d'un bois sacré) Tableau II (Camp des pirates) Tableau III (Paysage du première 1er tableau)

CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 42 MINUTES WITH A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION

FIRST TIME TO THE SYMPHONY? SEE PAGE 7 OF THIS PROGRAM FOR FAQ’S TO MAKE YOUR EXPERIENCE GREAT!

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KEVIN JOHN EDUSEI, conductor

Kevin John Edusei is praised repeatedly for the drama and tension that he brings to his music-making, for his clear sense of architecture and attention to detail.

A suave and elegant figure on the podium, he has conducted widely across Europe, dividing his time equally between the concert hall and opera house. He is Chief Conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of Edusei’s 2020/21 season included his debuts with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and his return to the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic at the Concertgebouw. Highlights of previous seasons include the Deutsches SymphonieOrchester Berlin, Bamberg Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber orchestras as well as his BBC Proms and Royal Festival Hall debuts with the Chineke! Orchestra.

Edusei was appointed Chief Conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra in 2014. He has been applauded for introducing an eclectic range of repertoire into the MSO concert programmes and cultivating a loyal, trusting audience, and in recognition of these achievements the orchestra was awarded the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal Government in 2018. In 2019 Edusei led the Munich Symphony Orchestra on their first tour of China and Korea.

As Chief Conductor at Bern Opera House, Edusei has led many new productions including Peter Grimes, Salome, Bluebeard’s Castle, Tannhäuser, Kátya Kábanová, a cycle of the Mozart Da Ponte operas - described in the press as “rousing and brilliant” - and Ariadne auf Naxos which led the Neue Zürcher Zeitung to describe him as “the discovery“ of the production. Elsewhere Edusei has conducted at the Semperoper Dresden (Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Hindemith’s Cardillac) and in 2018 he made his debut at the Hamburg State Opera. He has conducted Die Zauberflöte at the Volksoper Wien and Komische Oper Berlin where he has also conducted Don Giovanni. In 19/20 he made his debut at the Hannover State Opera in a new production of Tosca and at English National Opera in a new production of The Marriage of Figaro.

Edusei has a varied discography, which includes recordings with the Bern Symphony Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra and Tonkünstler Orchestra, and he is currently mid-way through a cycle of the complete Schubert symphonies with the Munich Symphony Orchestra.

Edusei was born in Germany. In 2004 he was awarded the fellowship for the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival by David Zinman, in 2007 he was a prize-winner at the Lucerne Festival conducting competition under the artistic direction of Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös, and in 2008 he won the International Dimitris Mitropoulos Competition.

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YUMI HWANG-WILLIAMS, violin

Yumi Hwang-Williams, Concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony since 2000, is an American violinist of exceptional musicianship who is recognized both for her stylish performances of the classics and her commitment to the works of present-day composers.

Strings magazine calls her “a modern Prometheus” who has “emerged as a fiery champion of contemporary classical music.” Her interpretations of concertos by Thomas Adès, Aaron Jay Kernis, Michael Daugherty, and Christopher Rouse have earned critical acclaim as well as enthusiastic approval from the composers. She has collaborated with the Joffrey Ballet (Chicago) in a world premiere of Bold Moves, with ten performances of Thomas Adès’ Concentric Paths for violin and orchestra choreographed by Ashley Page. The Colorado Symphony presented the world premiere of Rising Phoenix, violin concerto written for Yumi by Daniel Kellogg in 2016. In 2018, PENTATONE label released 2 disc centennial celebration of Isang Yun’s music with Yumi, Dennis Russel Davies, and The Bruckner Orchestra Linz (Austria) of the Violin Concerto No. 1, solo piece, and work with piano — a culmination of a decade-long project of Korea’s most controversial composer. Recently, Yumi recorded #elijah for violin and orchestra by California composer, John Wineglass, with The London Symphony which will be released in spring of 2023.

Yumi is frequently heard as soloist in her capacity as Concertmaster with the Colorado Symphony and occasionally has stepped in as last minute replacement, with Sibelius Concerto in 2017, and recently with Bach Double Violin Concerto featuring Chris Thile on mandolin. She has appeared with other major orchestras both in the U.S. and abroad, including the London Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Sinfonieorchester Basel (Switzerland), and the Bruckner Orchester Linz (Austria), Brno Philharmonic (Czech Republic) with conductors Marin Alsop, Dennis Russell Davies, Hans Graf, Paavo Järvi, Peter Oundjian, Markus Stenz, among others.

Prior to joining the Colorado Symphony, Yumi served as Principal Second Violin for the Cincinnati Symphony. In addition, she previously served as Concertmaster of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra for 13 summers with Marin Alsop, has performed as Guest Concertmaster for The Singapore Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa, at the invitation of Music Director Pinchas Zukerman, and The Napa Valley Festival Orchestra. She continues to play Guest First Violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, with whom she has a long standing association.

Yumi began violin studies at the age of 10 in Philadelphia at the Girard Academic Music Program (GAMP), a public music magnet school, one year after emigrating from South Korea. She was a soloist with Philadelphia Orchestra at age 14 and was accepted to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music the following year, where she received her Bachelor of Music degree. Currently, she is Adjunct Violin Professor at the University of Denver, Lamont School of Music, and is actively involved in advancing the arts in the community through numerous local concerts, chamber

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music collaborations, and supporting the symphony. In 2021 during the heart of the COVID lockdown, Yumi and Michelle DeYoung, world class Mezzo-Soprano co-founded ENSEMBLE CHARITÉ which donates all proceeds from concerts to the designated partnering charity organization.

Yumi performs on a violin made by G. B. Guadagnini in Piacenza, Italy circa 1748.

NOTE FROM YUMI HWANG-WILLIAMS

I would like to dedicate these concerts of the Szymanowski Violin Concerto No. 1 as a tribute to David Arben (1927-2017), Associate Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1959-1993, a Polish violinist, Holocaust survivor of unspeakable atrocities, my friend and mentor.

Our world of classical music training is one that does not end with a degree. It’s really just the beginning of the long and difficult journey of figuring out how to create a life as musicians and artists and how to maneuver in that professional world. Our studies are intensified as we practice and prepare for the coveted positions in major orchestras and concert opportunities. David Arben became a trusted and supportive mentor at that seminal time for me and then continued for many years as I would prepare my audition and concert repertoire. Our times were always full of laughter and joy. He generously shared his kernels of wisdom about music and life with me.

David Arben performed the Szymanowski concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1989 when I was still a student at the Curtis Institute of Music. This was my first introduction to its alluring beauty and mystique and I feel his supportive presence looming over me as I am honored to introduce this incredible musical work to Denver.

Daniel Webster, critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote, “There are musical shepherds who take responsibility for repertoire lost, strayed, forgotten. David Arben proved one of those when he was soloist last night in Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1, a piece the Philadelphia Orchestra had not thought about in more than 60 years. He showed his determination to reintroduce the piece was justified.”

There is a memoir written by Dr. John Jackson and Rebecca Johnson-Picht titled ARBEN:David Arben’s Life of Miracles & Successes. www.davidarben.com has a documentary and resources for educational materials.

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DUAIN WOLFE, founder and director, Colorado Symphony Chorus

Three-time Grammy winner for Best Choral Performance, Best Classical Recording, and Best Opera Performance, Duain Wolfe is Founder and Director of the Colorado Symphony Chorus.

This year marks Wolfe’s 39th season with the Colorado Symphony Chorus. The Chorus has been featured at the Aspen Music Festival for nearly three decades. Wolfe recently retired as Director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus after 28 years. He has collaborated with Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, and Sir George Solti on numerous recordings including Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, which won the 1998 Grammy® for Best Opera Recording. Wolfe’s extensive musical accomplishments have resulted in numerous awards, including the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of Denver, the Bonfils Stanton Award in the Arts and Humanities, the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline, and the Michael Korn Award for the Development of the Professional Choral Art. Wolfe is Founder of the Colorado Children’s Chorale, from which he retired in 1999 after 25 years. For 20 years, Wolfe also worked with the Central City Opera Festival as chorus director and conductor, founding and directing the company’s young artist residence program, as well as its education and outreach programs. Wolfe’s other accomplishments include directing and preparing choruses for Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, the Bravo! Vail Festival, the Berkshire Choral Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Grand Teton Music Festival. He has worked with Pinchas Zuckerman and Alexander Shelly as Chorus Director for the Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra for the past 20 years.

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COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS

The 2022/23 Colorado Symphony concert season marks the 39th season of the Colorado Symphony Chorus. Founded in 1984 by Duain Wolfe at the request of Gaetano Delogu, then the Music Director of the Symphony, the chorus has grown into a nationally respected ensemble. This outstanding chorus of volunteers joins the Colorado Symphony for numerous performances each year, to repeated critical acclaim.

The Chorus has performed at noted music festivals in the Rocky Mountain region, including the Colorado Music Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival, and the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, where it has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony, under conductors Alan Gilbert, Hans Graf, Jaap van Zweden, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Fabio Luisi. For over twenty five years, the Chorus was featured at the world-renowned Aspen Music Festival, performing many great masterworks under the baton of conductors Lawrence Foster, James Levine, Murry Sidlin, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, and Robert Spano.

Among the eight recordings the Colorado Symphony Chorus has made is a NAXOS release of Roy Harris’s Symphony No. 4. The Chorus is also featured on a Hyperion release of the Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem and Stephen Hough’s Missa Mirabilis. Most recently, the Colorado Symphony and Chorus released a world-premiere recording of William Hill’s The Raven.

In 2009, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the chorus, Duain Wolfe conducted the chorus on a three-country, two-week concert tour of Europe, presenting the Verdi Requiem in Budapest, Vienna, Litomysl and Prague; in 2016 the chorus returned to Europe for concerts in Paris, Strasbourg and Munich featuring the Fauré Requiem. In the summer of 2022, the Chorus toured Austria, performing to great acclaim in Vienna, Graz and Salzburg.

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COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS

Duain Wolfe, Founding Director and Conductor

Mary Louise Burke, Principal Associate Director and Conductor

Taylor Martin, Associate Director and Conductor

Jared Joseph, Conducting Intern

Hsiao-Ling Lin and ShaoChun Tsai Schneider, pianists

Eric Israelson, Chorus Manager/Librarian

Barbara Porter, Associate Chorus Manager

SOPRANO

Ascani, Lori Atchison, René Blum, Jude Bowen, Alex Brauchli, Margot Causey, Denelda Coberly, Ruth Coberly, Sarah Collins, Suzanne Collums, Angie Cote, Kerry Dakkouri, Claudia Eck, Emily Emerich, Kate Ewert, Gracie Galante, Leontine Gaskill, Andria Gile, Jenifer Gill, Lori Graber, Susan Headrick, Alaina Heintzkill, Mary-Therese Hittle, Erin Irigoyen, Alicia Jones, Kaitlyn Jorden, Cameron Kermgard, Lindsey Kinnischtzke, Meghan Kraft, Lisa Kushnir, Marina Linder, Dana Look, Cathy Machusko, Rebecca Montigne, Erin Maupin, Anne Moraskie, Wendy Nyholm, Christine O'Nan, Jeannette Peterson, Jodie

Pflug, Kim Porter, Barbara Rae, Donneve Ropa, Lori Roth, Sarah Sladovnik, Roberta Tate, Judy Timme, Sydney Von Roedern, Susan Walker, Marcia Wall, Alison Wise, Rebecca Woodrow, Sandy Wuertz, Karen Zisler, Joan

ALTO

Adams, Priscilla Berganza, Brenda Braud, Charlotte Chatfield, Cass Conrad, Jayne Cox, Martha Darone, Janie Fairchild, Raleigh Friedman, Anna Gayley, Sharon Golden, Daniela Groom, Gabriella Guittar, Pat Haller, Emily Haxton, Sheri Hoopes, Kaia Hoskins, Hansi Jackson, Brandy Janasko, Ellen Kaminske, Christine Kim, Annette LeBaron, Andrea London, Carole

Long, Tinsley Maltzahn, Joanna McWaters, Susan Nordenholz, Kristen Owens, Sheri Parsons, Jill Rudolph, Kathi Scarselli, Elizabeth Stevenson, Melanie Thaler, Deanna Thayer, Mary Tiggelaar, Clara Trubetskoy, Kimberly Virtue, Pat Worthington, Evin York, Beth

TENOR Babcock, Gary Bowman, Ryan Carlson, James Davies, Dusty Dinkel, Jack Fuehrer, Roger Gale, John Gordon, Frank Guittar, Forrest Hodel, David Hughes, Tony Ibrahim, Sami Johnson, Trey Kolm, Kenneth McCracken, Todd Milligan, Tom Moraskie, Richard Muesing, Garvis Myers, Lucas Nicholas, Timothy Rangel, Miguel Rehberg, Dallas

Richardson, Tyler Roach, Eugene Ruth, Ronald Seamans, Andrew Shaw, Kyle Sims, Jerry Stohlmann, Phillip Thompson, Hannis Zimmerman, Kenneth BASS Adams, John Friedlander, Robert Gray, Matthew Grossman, Chris Griffin, Tim Hesse, Douglas Highbaugh, David Hunt, Leonard Israelson, Eric Jackson, Terry Jirak, Thomas Jones, John Joseph, Jared Lingenfelter, Paul Mehta, Nalin Molberg, Matthew Morrison, Greg Nuccio, Gene Phillips, John Pilcher, Ben Potter, Tom Quarles, Kenneth Richards, Joshua Skillings, Russell Smedberg, Matthew Struthers, David Swanson, Wil

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LILI BOULANGER (1893-1918)

D’un matin de printemps (“Of a Spring Morning”)

Lili Boulanger was born on August 21, 1893 in Paris, and died on March 15, 1918 in Mézy-par-Meulan. D’un matin de printemps was composed 1918 and premiered on June 3, 1919 in Paris. The work is scored for piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings. Duration is about 5 minutes. This is the Colorado Symphony premiere performance.

“Though Lili Boulanger died in 1918 at the age of 24,” wrote musicologist David Noakes, “hers was a creative life of more than mere promise; it was a life, at least, of partial fulfillment.” The name of Boulanger was indelibly inscribed into the annals of music by Nadia Boulanger, the 20th-century’s most influential teacher and mentor of composers. Despite her impact on, Nadia never considered herself a composer (“not bad, but useless” is how she dismissed her original works), and firmly held that the family’s creative talent had been inherited by her younger sister, Lili. And considerable talent there was to inherit. The girls’ paternal grandfather, Frédéric, taught cello at the Paris Conservatoire; his wife was the well-known soprano Marie-Julie Boulanger. The couple’s son, Ernest, won the Prix de Rome in 1835, became a successful opera composer in Paris and teacher of singing at the Conservatoire, and was awarded the Légion d’Honneur in 1870. In 1877, he married Raïssa Mychetsky, one of his most talented students, when he was sixty and she nineteen. Among the family’s friends and regular visitors were Charles Gounod, Gabriel Fauré, Jules Massenet and Camille Saint-Saëns. It was into this privileged musical environment that Nadia was born in 1887; Marie-Juliette Olga (Lili) came along six years later.

Lili’s musical talent was evident from her earliest years. She could reliably carry a tune by two, and three years later began tagging along with Nadia to sit in on her older sister’s classes at the Conservatoire. Lili studied harp, piano, cello and violin, but steady bouts of ill health, precipitated by a near-fatal attack of pneumonia when she was three, precluded the physical exertions necessary to master any of those instruments. She turned instead to composition and began serious study in 1909 with Georges Caussade. Three years later, she was formally admitted to the Conservatoire, but illness prevented her from participating in the Prix de Rome competitions. A stay at a sanitarium on the English Channel restored her health sufficiently for her to win the Prix in 1913, the first woman to earn that coveted honor. Her arrival at the Villa Medici in Rome was delayed by illness until March 1914, and even then, weakened by the trip, she was confined to her room for nearly a month and could not resume work until late spring. Lili had to return to France when World War I broke out in August, and there organized an extensive program of letter-writing, communication and support among the Conservatoire students who had been mobilized and their families and friends during the following year. In 1916, she set to work on an operatic version of Maeterlinck’s La Princesse Maleine, with whose lonely heroine she identified. She worked on this and other projects, but her health steadily declined during the ensuing months due to the rigors of the war, several surgeries, and difficult periods of convalescence. She died in a Paris suburb on March 15, 1918.

The complementary works D’un matin de printemps (“Of a Spring Morning”) and D’un soir triste (“Of a Sad Evening”) of 1918 were the last scores Lili Boulanger wrote. D’un matin de printemps is bright and festive.

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KAROL SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)

Violin Concerto No. 1 Orchestra, Op. 35 Karol Szymanowski was born on October 3, 1882 in Timoshovka, Ukraine, and died on March 29, 1937 in Lausanne, Switzerland. His Violin Concerto was composed in 1916, and premiered on November 1, 1922 in Warsaw, conducted by Gregor Fitelberg with Jósef Oziminski as soloist. The work is scored for piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, piano, two harps and strings. Duration is about 27 minutes. This is the Colorado Symphony premiere performance.

Karol Szymanowski was the preeminent Polish composer of the first half of the 20th century. His father was an ardent connoisseur of the arts, and Karol grew up in a household rich in culture. Szymanowski (shee-man-OV-skee) showed exceptional musical talent early in life, and he began his professional studies in Warsaw in 1901. In 1905, he and three of his student colleagues founded the Association of Young Polish Composers, a group, analogous to the Young Poland movement in literature, dedicated to the publication and performance of works from Poland. He made frequent trips to Berlin and Leipzig during the following years to arrange concerts of Polish music and oversee the publication of his music, which was then heavily influenced by that of Wagner and Richard Strauss.

In 1911, Szymanowski settled in Vienna, where he signed a ten-year publishing contract with Universal Edition and achieved notable successes with performances of his Second Piano Sonata and Symphony No. 2. After World War I ended, he made several trips to the European Mediterranean and North Africa, and his direct contact with the ancient, early Christian and Arab cultures of Italy, Constantinople, Tunis and Algiers profoundly altered his artistic temperament. He abandoned the Germanic Post-Romanticism of his earlier works and turned to the music of Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and the Russian mystic Scriabin to help in defining an idiom suitable to his new creative direction. During the years of World War I, when travel was restricted, Szymanowski, back in Poland, occupied his time with an intense investigation of ancient and Oriental cultures, and became an authority on those subjects; his music of that period reached its zenith with the Third Symphony (Song of the Night) and the opulent opera King Roger.

During the early 1920s, Szymanowski resumed the travels that had been interrupted by the war. Those years also saw another reconsideration of his compositional style. Having absorbed the influences of Strauss, Ravel and Scriabin, he turned to his own country for renewed inspiration, and became intent on finding a national identity for contemporary Polish music based on the songs and dances of its people. He found his richest native source in the music of the mountain folk of the Tatra region, spending much time in their chief city, Zakopane. In 1927, he was simultaneously offered the directorships of the conservatories of Cairo and Warsaw, and it is indicative of his loyalties at the time that he accepted the post in Poland. In the early 1930s, Szymanowski achieved his greatest success and prosperity. His health, however, never robust, began to fail, and he resigned the directorship of the Warsaw Conservatory in April 1932, thereafter devoting himself entirely to creative work until his death in Lausanne in 1937.

The First Violin Concerto is a fantasy in both its expressive content and its form. Szymanowski, then immersed in translating his studies of myth, exotic cultures and ancient civilizations into music (he had just completed his Third Symphony, subtitled “Song of the Night,”

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based on verses by the 13th-century Persian poet Jallál-Ùddin-Rùmi), turned for the work’s literary inspiration to a sensuous poetic nocturne by Polish poet Tadeusz Micinski (1873-1918): Asses in crowns settle majestically on the grass — fireflies are kissing the wild rose … Pan plays his pipe in the oak grove. Mayflies dart into dance, plaited in amorous embrace eternally young and holy … I fly: here over the water — there under the trees. In the woods are glades as if appointed for these nocturnal revels. English musicologist Arthur Hedley wrote of the fluctuating moods and cinematic flow of this remarkable music: “The Concerto is in one movement — a continuous rhapsody, moving from one ecstatic climax to another, with the solo instrument maintaining almost without break a stream of rapturous music away up on the heights. There is a profusion of themes given to the solo violin, which never ceases to be the center of interest. Scherzando sections alternate with episodes of reverie, and each climax rises to a higher pitch of intensity than the one that preceded it. The music arrives at last at the cadenza, a tour de force, after which the orchestra, with all its forces unleashed, carries the music to the most passionate climax of the whole work. The violin takes its leave in phrases of ravishing beauty. The end is hushed.”

MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937)

Daphnis et Chloé, Choreographic

Symphony in Three Parts

Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, France, and died on December 28, 1937 in Paris. Daphnis et Chloé was begun perhaps as early as 1909 and completed in its final version on April 5, 1912. The premiere was given by the Ballet Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, on June 8, 1912. The work is scored for piccolo, two flutes, alto flute, two oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, two B-flat clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, two harps, strings and mixed chorus. Duration is about 50 minutes. The last performance by the orchestra was February 2-4, 2018, conducted by Brett Mitchell.

The Ballet Russe descended on Paris in 1909 with an impact still reverberating through the worlds of art, music and dance. Its brilliant impresario, Sergei Diaghilev, went shopping among the artistic riches of the French capital, and soon had gathered together the most glittering array of creative talent ever assembled under a single banner: Falla, Picasso, Nijinsky, Fokine, Bakst, Monteux, Stravinsky, Massine, Debussy, Matisse, Prokofiev, Pavlova, Poulenc, Milhaud. Early in 1910 Diaghilev approached Maurice Ravel with a scenario by Fokine for a ballet based on a pastoral romance derived from the writings of the 5th-century Greek sophist Longus. In his 1928 autobiographical sketch, Ravel wrote, “I was commissioned by the director of the Russian Ballet to write Daphnis et Chloé, a choreographic symphony in three movements. My aim in writing it was to compose a vast musical fresco, and to be not so much careful about archaic details as loyal to my visionary Greece, which is fairly closely related to the Greece imagined and depicted by French painters at the end of the 18th century. The work is constructed like a symphony, with a very strict system of tonality, formed out of a small number of themes whose development assures homogeneity to the work.” Ravel’s refined view of Daphnis through the eyes of Watteau was at variance with the primitive one held by others on the production staff, especially Léon

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Bakst, who was doing the stage designs. There were squabbles and delays in mounting the production, and, as a ballet, Daphnis had a lukewarm reception at its premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on June 8, 1912. Ravel’s score, however, was greeted with enthusiasm, perhaps because the orchestra was the only facet of the production that was completely prepared. The music immediately entered the repertory of the world’s orchestras and has remained one of the most popular of 20th-century scores, though the ballet is rarely seen.

Daphnis et Chloé opens in a meadow bordering a sacred wood on the island of Lesbos. Greek youths and maidens enter with wreaths and flowers to place at the altar of the Nymphs as the shepherd Daphnis descends from the hills. His lover, Chloé, crosses the meadow to meet him. The girls are attracted to the handsome Daphnis and dance seductively around him, inciting Chloé’s jealousy. Chloé, in her turn, becomes the object of the men’s advances, particularly a crude one from the clownish goatherd Dorcon. Daphnis’ jealousy is now aroused and he challenges Dorcon to a dancing contest, the prize to be a kiss from Chloé. Dorcon performs a grotesque dance and he is jeered by the onlookers. Daphnis easily wins Chloé’s kiss with his graceful performance. The crowd leads Chloé away, leaving Daphnis alone to lapse into languid ecstasy. Daphnis’ attention is suddenly drawn to the clanging of arms and shouts of alarm from the woods. Pirates have invaded and set upon the Greeks. Daphnis rushes off to protect Chloé, but she has been captured.

In Scene Two, set on a jagged seacoast, the brigands enter their hideaway laden with booty. Chloé, hands bound, is led in. She pleads for her release. When the chief refuses, the sky grows dark and the god Pan, arm extended threateningly, appears upon the nearby mountains. The frightened pirates flee, leaving Chloé alone.

Scene Three is again set amid the hills and meadows of the ballet’s first scene. It is sunrise. Herdsmen arrive and tell Daphnis that Chloé has been rescued. She appears and throws herself into Daphnis’ arms. The old shepherd Lammon explains to them that Pan has saved Chloé in remembrance of his love for the nymph Syrinx. In gratitude, Daphnis and Chloé re-enact the ancient tale, in which Syrinx is transformed into a reed by her sisters to save her from the lustful pursuit of Pan, who then made a flute from that selfsame reed — the pipes of Pan — upon which to play away his longing. Daphnis and Chloé embrace tenderly and join in the general joyous dance that ends the ballet.

©2022 Dr. Richard E. Rodda