Le tombeau de Couperin

Ravel lost many friends during the Great War, and the original six-movement solo piano version of Le tombeau de Couperin (1917) was dedicated to their memory (the orchestration of four movements dates from 1919). Rather than compose an overtly funereal work, Ravel chose instead to evoke the spirit of the dead through the fastidious Baroque intricacies of celebrated keyboard virtuoso and composer François Couperin (1668-1733). The opening “Prélude” is dedicated to the memory of Lieutenant Jacques Charlot, a close friend of Ravel’s at his publishers, Durand. The “Fugue” was inscribed to Jean Cruppi (full name Jean-Louis), son of politician Jean and gifted amateur pianist Louise, to whom the opera L’heure espagnole is dedicated. Two of the movements went to fallen friends from Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where Ravel had begun work on the piece in 1914: the “Forlane” to Basque painter Lieutenant Gabriel Deluc, and the “Rigaudon” to brothers Pierre and Paul Gaudin, childhood chums who were killed by the same shell during their very first day in action at the front. The dedication of the enchanting “Menuet” went to Jean Dreyfus, whose family home Ravel stayed at while finishing Le Tombeau. The “Toccata” finale was inscribed in memory of musicologist Captain Joseph de Marliave, husband of pianist Marguerite Long, who had taught Ravel at the Paris Conservatoire.