String Quartet in F Major

Ravel wrote this work in his late 20s, while he was finishing his studies at the Paris Conservatory. Exquisitely crafted, it is often hailed as his first masterpiece. In his solo piano piece Jeux d’eau (Fountains, 1901), he had shown his nuanced grasp of colour and harmony; in his Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess, 1899), he’d expressed his love of Spain, evoking a dance that the eponymous princess, in bygone years, might have danced at a Spanish court. In the 1903 String Quartet, these impulses are drawn together with a greater breadth of vision. The piece is often paired with Debussy’s String Quartet from 1893—and there are close similarities between the two. In the tradition of late Romanticism, both composers arrange their four-movement works around cyclical themes: musical ideas resurface and help to unify each movement. Like Debussy, Ravel explores modal scales and a wide range of colours and textures. Though Ravel clearly looked to Debussy’s quartet for inspiration, Debussy was encouraging about Ravel’s quartet, and there is much here to enjoy: the soaring lyricism of the first movement; the playful rhythms of the pizzicato strings in the lively second movement; the nocturne-like sensuous third movement; and the lively statements of the vigorous finale.