Ravel (2005, English
edition 2007) is set in Montfort-l’Amaury in France from 1927 to 1937. It is a
fictional account of Joseph Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), French composer,
pianist, and conductor, in the ten years to his death at 62. But this is not a
typical biography. This is better! It is a wonderful microscopic account of
Ravel in the bath, getting dressed, moving around his apartment, and catching a
train.
Ravel travels for six
days on the luxury ocean liner, France,
from Le Havre to New York. He takes 60 shirts, 20 pairs of shoes, 75 ties, and
25 sets of pajamas. He was the first man in France to wear pastel shirts. ‘Cane
hooked over his forearm, gloves folded back at the wrist, he looks like a
stylish punter …’ at a day at the horse races, but he is short – and looks like
a jockey. He has a four-month series of concerts and appearances –
criss-crossing America in trains during ‘absurd round trips, dubious stopovers,
and ill-chosen byways on a tour of twenty-five cities.’
Ravel is a heavy
smoker and 52 years old. Once at the peak of his profession, it is now waning. ‘He
is, he knows, the opposite of virtuoso but, since no one understands anything
about it, he pulls through perfectly … that leads to a certain nonchalance, an
increasing offhandedness in his already insecure piano playing. He thinks no
one has noticed … Well, people have noticed.’
In 1928 he is
commissioned to compose music for a ballet … he
produces something with ‘no form, strictly speaking, no development or
modulation, just some rhythm and arrangement … a score without music, an
orchestral factory without a purpose, a suicide whose weapon is the simple
swelling of a sound.’ He has created his best known piece – Bolero.
But something is going
wrong. He is becoming forgetful. He smokes too much, he sleeps too little, he
is constantly bored and ‘dead tired.’ Then, at age 57, he is involved in a taxi
accident, ‘shatters three teeth while shards of glass tear busily at his face,
especially the nose, one eyebrow, and the chin.’ He will never be the same.
‘Electricity, injections, hypnosis, homeopathy, physical therapy, positive
thinking, enough drugs to stun an ox, but nothing, apparently, works.’
Serious and tragically
sad, funny and hilariously witty, this is a gentle way of revealing Ravel’s
character and personality. While this biographical fiction has a great deal of
minutiae about Ravel, it is more importantly, about a creatively talented artist
as he ages and deteriorates. It is about his accolades, despite his limitations
– accolades for his past achievements and the expectation that anything he
continues to do will continue to be brilliant. And yet, Ravel himself knows
that his life and talents are declining. How does he maintain his dignity?
Echenoz describes this magnificently.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different
in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament
(2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a
Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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