Analysis Of 'Mouvement De Menuet' By Maurice Ravel

The piece that I have chosen to do research on for this project is “Sonatine, No. 2, "Mouvement de Menuet"” by Maurice Ravel. Firstly, Maurice Ravel was born on 1875 and passed away on 1937. He was a French composer, pianist and conductor of classical music whose most well-known works are Bolero and Daphnis et Chloé. Shortly after his birth, his family moved away to Paris, where he received his first piano lessons in 1882. Maurice Ravel faced many failures in his music career before being regarded as one of the greatest living composers in France. Some of his failures were when he originally he failed to win any prizes after he gained admission to Eugène Anthiôme's preparatory piano class at the Conservatoire and was consequently dismissed from his classes, leaving the Conservatoire in 1895. Ravel joined and was dismissed from the Conservatoire twice in his life, in 1895 and in 1903 both for the reasons, that he …show more content…
Mouvement de Menuet is a shorter composition compared to the first and third movements and is in the style of a waltz written in D flat major. Ravel used traditional harmonic styles, often moving the chord in thirds. According to Vlado Perlemuter, Ravel said that it should be played sensitively, but not overrefined. He also makes use of parallel triads and sevenths. The piece is in 3/8 and is mostly played at a pianissimo. The left hand often plays staccato triads in a waltz harmony. The melody has a wide range of notes and it is mostly disjunct. There are many dynamic swells and crescendos along the piece. This piece is in rondo form. The first A section is from bars 1-12 (repeated), the B section is bars 13-38 and the C section is at bars 39-51. The A section then repeats again at bars 53-64 and the B section repeats again at bars 65-78. There is then a coda at bars 79-82. In bar 51, the key modulates to A Major, indicating a new