226. Showstoppers

The Concert - Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Works for solo piano by Bach and Ravel performed by Ji, piano on April 12, 2015.

• Bach: Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825
• Ravel: La Valse

First, we have the less razzle-dazzle of the pair: Bach’s Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major. The piece opens with a fairly serene, lilting theme. The second movement gets a bit more rollicking, with dotted rhythms and skips in the bass. And the final movement has some more virtuosic passagework.

After that comes the real fireworks: Ravel’s famous La Valse. The composer’s own introduction is really the best way to describe what happens over the course of the piece: “Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished,” he writes. “The clouds gradually scatter: one sees an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth.” As the piece goes on, it seems to get more and more out of control, ending in a frenzy that recalls a danse macabre—a dance to the death.

Ravel originally wrote the work for orchestra, and he intended it to be choreographed as a ballet. But when he presented the score to the Russian impresario Diaghilev, he refused. The piece was a masterpiece, Diaghilev said, but it shouldn’t be danced: it was itself a portrait of the ballet—no dancers required.