Tzigane

Ravel’s 1924 violin showpiece was inspired by the Hungarian folk music that virtuoso Jelly d’Arányi performed into the late hours following a private recital of the composer's Sonata for Violin and Cello in London. The title, Tzigane, draws on the French word for “gypsy”: Ravel's piece takes on the slow-fast form of the csárdás, a traditional Hungarian folk dance—and imitates the ornaments, hesitations, glissandi and nuanced tonal inflections of popular Romani music. His stylistic parody is imbued with the spirit of Romanticism—expansive and richly expressive. Ravel initially scored the piece for violin and luthéal, a kind of hybrid piano that can sound similar to the cimbalom heard in eastern European music. (The luthéal also appears in Ravel's L’enfant et les sortilèges.) As well as being influenced by Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, Ravel's work contains shades of Paganini’s Caprices, not least in the fiery opening solo cadenza. The piece was dedicated to d’Arányi. It is now more commonly heard on violin and piano, or in the orchestral version that Ravel scored soon after its London premiere.