Maurice Ravel - Jeux d'eau

Performed by Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden.

Before I start to write about the piece itself, here is some information about Maurice Ravel. The French composer was born in May 1875 and was one of the first impressionists in classical music.

Trademark: Most of his compositions sound very 'clean'. Ravel's music is never too heavy. In my opinion you need to change pedal a lot in this piece. It should sound articulated, yet not too dry.

Style: Impressionistic

Jeux d'eau, Introduction

As I am drinking my glass of water and study it's texture and flexibility, I realize that Ravel admired this traits of the fluid that is required for life and it's miracles.

In the first measures of Jeux d'eau, we can hear a streamlet, flowing from a source, down the rocky hills. It's marked pianissimo and nothing warns us of the waterfalls downhill. The performance is played very clean but with feeling. We hear little "bells" played by the left hand, as pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet calls them.

Middle part

The water flows faster and there's a large crescendo towards a fortissimo which disappears as fast as it came to it's existence. Mr. Vanden Eynden allows practically no extended rubato except where it's indicated, but inserts a 'comma' now and then to let the lively piece respire from it's quick moving forward.

One comma is inserted before the forte, which announces the first waterfall: The left hand is obviously leading the melody, dominating but never sharp. If freedom is allowed by the pianist, the freedom is given to the left hand. The right hand motifs are played in a continuous smooth manner, following the melodical notes.

Climax, summary

We return to a pianissimo, more peaceful than the first measures, but the subito piano anticipates on the forthcoming pointed notes and grave basses. The pedal is important. A musical rule is that two frases played in exactly the same way, are boring and therefore one must try to avoid it. Mr. Vanden Eynden does avoid it by using the pedal in ways that never bore, playing sometimes a little drier than usual, sometimes making it sound like a mishmash, but never too long, for every single note has to be heard.

There's an accellerando towards the climax, the fortisissimo, the high waterfalls. The wind keeps teasing the water, producing a real "jeux d'eau" (watergame) which is not playful anymore but really grave and intense.

However, we return to the peaceful theme moving towards the end. The left hand plays the melodical bass notes, more intense than before. We hear a summary of what happened. The streamlet has grown big and has lost it's youthfullness or playfullness when it came out of it's source.

Has it? The last measures reveal the answer.

My opinion of the performance: 9/10

By far the best performance of this masterpiece. It's often played way too neutral or too fast. Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden though inserted brilliancy, constancy, feeling without getting too heavy. The tempi allows the listeners to follow it's fluent musical sentences and make them able to understand the originate of the stream, the climax and the end of the 'jeux d'eau'.

Picture source: http://www.jeanclaudevandeneynden.com/nl/Jean-Claude_Vanden_Eynden_NL/Discografie.html