Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Piêce en forme de habanera
The habanera, a Cuban dance of Spanish origin and
ancestor of many later dance forms such as the tango, was once the most popular dance of
the New World. French composers after Chabrier were aware if it, and certainly Ravel, born
of a Basque mother at Ciboure close to the Spanish border, was. His piece 'in the form of
a habanera', composed in 1907, is probably best known of the wordless vocal studies
commissioned by A.L. Hettich, a singing teacher of the time, and published in his
collection as an ‘Etude Vocalise (pour voix grave et piano)’. It has become
widely popular transcribed as a piece for a solo instrument with piano. Ravel was only
twenty in 1895, when he wrote his first Habanera – for two pianos,
orchestrating it in 1908 as part of his Rapsodie espagnol.
© Felix
Aprahamian
