The Technique of Beauty – Ravel

— From: Chapter 9, Clock Time

You undoubtedly recognize the following phenomenon, a melody that has ruthlessly embedded itself in your brain. I frequently experience this – I’m engrossed in something, and a snippet of melody plays in my mind; I find myself whistling or humming it. There’s no escaping it. What is it, though? It might be the harp melody at the beginning of Stravinsky’s Orpheus, or the melody from the slow movement of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G. I remember once humming such a forgotten melody, and suddenly it clicked – it was the slow movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto KV. 488, or so I thought. However, when I checked the score, it didn’t match; it resembled it. The melodic fragment also reminded me of Bach, so I started searching. I found the Sarabande from the first French Suite. The melody closely resembled it but wasn’t quite the same. Then it dawned on me – I had created a new one from both melodies, or at least a fragment, an attempt to find the original. Perhaps this is what happened in Beethoven’s mind when he designed that ‘third theme’ in the fifth sonata mentioned in the text about ‘Monteverdi’s Quest’ [see Ch.7, Kairos and Chronos], turning it into a sort of hybrid between a transitional phrase and a second theme. (I once investigated if there was anything written about it in his sketches, which are housed in the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, but no sketches from this part have been preserved.)

Let’s scrutinize the piano introduction of Ravel’s Adagio assai and see what it reveals in relation to the earlier points in my letter.

The section begins with a solo for the pianist of thirty-three measures; within it, there is a note that sounds only once: the high E on the second beat of measure nineteen. ‘High’ in terms of the melody, not viewed from the keyboard; it is the second-highest note in the melody, just before the end of the melody in measure thirty, another higher note, the F#, appears. 
 What do we hear in this introductory piano solo? An introductory accompaniment in the left hand and, from the second measure, a melody. That melody – and also the accompaniment – sounds familiar; we know it. But then again, not quite. It seems more like a recollection of a familiar melody, a melody from a more distant past. Let’s dwell on this for a moment. There are multiple layers of memory at play; first, the memory over a longer span of time, such as the recollection of this melody from the past or an earlier listening of the piano concerto itself, or the potential melody that may have already existed or could have existed, which Ravel remembers or has ‘remembered’; but also the memory after listening to the concert, a few hours later, for example. It is a melody that reminds us of fragments of melodies we sometimes unconsciously whistle or hum during a walk, not an exact representation of a melody but fragments of memories of it. 


This was one layer of a possible memory. There is also a layer that occurs during listening. It is the essence of every listening experience – almost no one realizes this, including most music creators. You hear the first measure of the piece, then the second measure; and while listening to that, you recall the first measure; listening to measure three, you recall the two measures before, but also the memory of measure one that you experienced while listening to measure two; consequently: at measure four, you remember the sequences from measure one to measure three, from measure one to measure two, and finally, the memory of measure one during the listening of measure two. During the listening of the nineteenth measure, precisely one hundred and seventy (18 + 17 + 16 + 15 + 14 + 13 + 12 + 11 + 10 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 171) measure units are filtered through memory.

Of course, you don’t remember those measures literally, note by note, in a mathematical manner – that would be a matter of ‘memory’ – but you do remember something from those measures that holds meaning, a meaning related to the larger whole; the whole that you know up to that point. What’s remarkable about that high E in measure nineteen is that, at the moment you hear it, you realize that you knew it had to come; in fact, you understand at the moment it sounds that you’ve known it all along, you’ve heard it coming from miles away. And yet – when you hear the piece for the first time – it comes as a surprise. How is this possible?

Well: there are both melodic and harmonic factors at play. Purely melodically speaking – omitting the accompaniment – it is noteworthy that the first note, the G#, is the most crucial ‘supporting note’, the note on which the melody is grounded, the plagal dominant, as it is called in professional circles. The G# is the mediant of E major, the key of the Adagio. The B above the G#, the authentic dominant, is another important anchor of the melody; the melody revolves around these notes all the time, with the G# being the most stable factor; it provides rest without fully resolving the tension, as would be the case with the note E, which is at the center of the melodic range. This E note, as expected, plays a subordinate melodic role; that is, it is important – perhaps the most important note of the melody – because the functions of all other notes are based on it, but it doesn’t appear as frequently, and when it does, it’s usually in rhythmically less prominent places. You could compare it to the role of the king in chess; the piece doesn’t do much in the game – the queen, for example, is infinitely more powerful, but when the king falls, the game is over. The aforementioned B is the second-highest note up to measure nineteen, with only the C# above it sounding a total of four times. This B sounds, for comparison, eight times; the A below it seven times; the G# eleven times; the F# twelve times, and the lowest note of the melody, also a B, only twice. All those numbers don’t say much; it only provides an indication; more importantly is the position of the note in the melody, on which part of the beat, and in which rhythmic figure. The high E (which has not sounded yet up to measure eighteen) is also a focal point in the melodic structure. That is one of the reasons why we can expect it. The melody up to measure nineteen is the preparation for it. We anticipate its arrival. If it didn’t sound, depending on our musical awareness, we would be left with a more or less vague sense of emptiness or dissatisfaction; something would not have happened that should have happened.

And then there is the harmonic component, the accompaniment; to what extent does that play a role in announcing the high E? Before delving further into this question, I must first discuss something about a rhythmic aspect of the accompaniment; something related to Kant’s ideas about the deviant, with that which challenges the rule. When we hear the music without knowing the score, we either hear a three-four time signature at a moderate tempo (in our perception, the first measure of the score would then cover two three-four measures), or a slow six-eighth time. However, the actual notation is a very slow three-four time, the time signature that fits the melody. The accompaniment goes against that. There is confusion about which beats are strong or stronger and which are lighter. Both the rhythm and the meter are ambiguous. This complicates the ‘grand’ memory I spoke of earlier.

Regarding the interplay between the harmony of the accompaniment and the melody, it is noticeable that the note B, the important supporting note of the harmonic structure, is absent in the accompaniment until it has sounded for the first time in the melody (in measure four). Ravel spares the fifth of the E chord in the accompaniment; only the notes E and G# sound. Once the note B sounds in the melody, it immediately becomes by far the most important note in the fourth through the sixth measure. These are also the measures in which, for the first time, the initial chord is abandoned.

Another notable aspect of the accompaniment is the counter-melody in the high middle voice. Here, the central E from the melody, its foundation, plays a significant role. The melody proceeds over the first twelve measures as follows: E (measure 1 – 2), D#, C#, D# (measure 3 – 5), E, D#, C#, B, G#, A, B (measure 6 – 12). This melody is significant because it ultimately, in measure 18, through the note F#, (partially) prepares the high E. The chord progression in the first eighteen measures revolves around the chords of the first, third, fourth, and fifth scale degrees; thus, an E major chord, a G# minor chord, an A major chord, and a B major chord (with or without added seventh). The harmony reinforces the melodic structure on the one hand but occasionally places it in a different light on the other hand. For instance, the note G# in measure two, the first note of the melody, is a resting point for both structures, the melodic and the harmonic; melodically as a plagal dominant and harmonically as the third of the chord.

However, in the seventh measure, the harmony forces it into a different role; from a harmonic perspective, the G# is now a tension note; the chord in this measure can be heard as a minor seventh chord of F#, or – if the E in the accompaniment is heard as a delay for the D# at the end of the measure – as a diminished seventh chord of this D#. In both cases, the melodic note G# serves as a delay for the F#. The interplay of accompanying chords and sub-melodies heightens the tension of the melodic development towards the high E, which ultimately arrives in measure nineteen. Just before that note comes, the harmonic tension in the preceding measure is further heightened by introducing a chord that partially ventures outside the E major scale; by introducing the chromatically raised note B#, the dominant seventh chord on the fifth scale degree of C# is formed, the minor chord of the sixth scale degree of E major appearing in measure nineteen. The B# is the leading tone of C#, so in measure eighteen, we already hear the approach of C#.

But there is another important note with melodic tension, and that is the previously mentioned F# from the accompaniment. This note is the seventh of the dominant chord and anticipates the note E. The note does come, but not in the register we expect; instead, it appears in the melody, an octave higher – that high E. This octave displacement enhances the element of surprise for the E, the note we have been waiting for all along, likely without being consciously aware of it, and when it arrives, it still manages to surprise us.

With the melodic tension notes from measure eighteen, another aspect related to remembering comes into play: expectation. Expectation and memory are two sides of the same coin. The earlier summing up of measure sequences in our memory is even more complicated than it initially seemed: there are also the sequences of expectations, the expectations encapsulated within the memories. Or vice versa; because where is the cause, and where is the effect?

One last observation about that high E demonstrates that the composer was also aware of its special position. The entire second part of the concerto can be understood as a three-part form, with an A-B-A structure as the basis. The first thirty-three measures, the melody in the piano solo, constitute the first A section; in the B section, the orchestra joins in, and E major is abandoned; finally, the piano melody returns, this time played by the English horn, forming (a variation of) the A section again, as if the piece remembers itself. It’s interesting to note that a cut is made in the melody of the English horn. The measure with the high E (measure nineteen of the piano solo) is omitted; instead, the original measure twenty-nine is heard; ten measures are skipped (measure 19 – 28). Measure twenty-nine seamlessly connects to measure eighteen; both the melodic note G# and the bass note C# are the same. The attainment of the high E was not meant to be repeated; it had to remain a unique event.

Increasingly, I realize how repetitions over time give the essence of those times – or our understanding of them – meaning and significance through repetition. And possibly come to a resolution, both in the sense of understanding and disappearing – like the melody that, finally remembered as a whole, so in kairos, can vanish from our minds.

— Cornelis de Bondt, 2018