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Maurice Ravel completed his String quartet in F major in early April 1903 at the age of 28. It was premiered in Paris in March the following year. The work follows a four-movement classical structure: the opening movement, in sonata form, presents two themes that occur again later in the work; a playful scherzo second movement is followed by a lyrical slow movement. The finale reintroduces themes from the earlier passages and ends the work vigorously. The structure of the quartet is modelled on that of Claude Debussy's String Quartet, written in 1893, although each composer's musical ideas were strongly contrasted with the other's. Debussy admired Ravel's piece rather more than did its dedicatee, Ravel's teacher Gabriel Fauré. ==Background== Ravel had been a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but his unconventional ideas had incurred the displeasure of its ultra-conservative director Charles Dubois and some other members of the faculty. His friend and teacher Gabriel Fauré continued to encourage and advise him, and Ravel made continual efforts to win the country's top musical award, the Prix de Rome in the face of resistance from the Conservatoire regime. By 1904 it was becoming clear to the musical public that Ravel was the outstanding French composer of his generation. Among his works by that date were the piano pieces ''Pavane pour une infante défunte'' and '' Jeux d'eau'' and 1904 saw the premieres of his orchestral song cycle '' Shéhérazade'' and the String Quartet.〔Kelly, Barbara L. ("Ravel, Maurice" ), ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, retrieved 26 June 2015 〕 The quartet has superficial resemblances to Debussy's String Quartet, written ten years earlier. Debussy approved of his younger colleague's work, and sent him an encouraging letter.〔Letter from Debussy, dated 4 March 1904, reproduced in Nichols, p. 53〕 Ravel's quartet is modelled on Debussy's as far as the structure is concerned, but where Debussy's music is, in Orenstein's words, "effusive, uninhibited, and open() up fresh paths", Ravel's music displays emotional reticence, innovation within traditional forms, and unrivalled technical mastery.〔Orenstein, p. 127〕 Ravel followed a direction he described as "opposite to that of Debussy's symbolism", abandoning "the vagueness and formlessness of the early French impressionists in favour of a return to classic standards."〔Orenstein, Arbie. ("Maurice Ravel" ), ''The American Scholar'', Vol. 64, No. 1 (Winter 1995), p. 101 〕 The quartet was premiered at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique on 5 March 1904, played by the Heymann Quartet.〔Nichols, p. 52〕 It was dedicated to Fauré, who was not greatly taken with the piece, but was nonetheless present at the performance. The critics were divided on the merits of the work. Pierre Lalo, already a staunch opponent of Ravel, dismissed it as derivative ("it offers an incredible resemblance to the music of M. Debussy")〔Orenstein, pp. 39–40〕 but Jean Marnold of the ''Mercure de France'' praised the work and described Ravel as "one of the masters of tomorrow".〔Orenstein, p. 40〕 The work had its London premiere in 1908 (the reviewer in ''The Musical Times'' found the music "chiefly remarkable for vagueness of significance, incoherence, and weird harmonic eccentricities)〔("London Concerts" ), ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 49, No. 779 (1 January 1908), p. 40 〕 and its German premiere in Berlin in 1910.〔("Foreign Notes" ), ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 51, No. 814 (1 December 1910), p. 805 〕 By 1914 the work was so well established that a London critic was able to compare performances by the Parisian String Quartet with those of British players in consecutive months.〔("London Concerts" ), ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 55, No. 852 (1 February 1914), p. 118 〕 The quartet has remained, in Orenstein's phrase, "a standard work in the chamber music repertory".〔Orenstein, p. 39〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「String Quartet (Ravel)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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