Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2

Program notes

About the Work

The second suite from Daphnis et Chloé is the dazzling finale of Ravel’s largest score, the ‘choreographic symphony’ he wrote for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and premiered in Paris in 1912. The ballet retells an ancient Greek pastoral romance of the shepherd Daphnis and the shepherdess Chloé, and Ravel poured into it some of the most sumptuous orchestration ever written. The composer himself drew the concluding portion of the ballet into this concert suite, which has since far outstripped the stage work in popularity. It comprises the three final scenes: ‘Lever du jour’ (Daybreak), the reunion-dance ‘Pantomime’, and the explosive ‘Danse générale’. Ravel called the whole work a ‘vast musical fresco’, and these final pages are its glory: a sunrise of unmatched orchestral splendour followed by a Bacchic dance of mounting frenzy. The original ballet uses a wordless chorus, and Ravel’s suites can be performed with or without it, though tonight’s open-air setting under the Schönbrunn sky is exactly the grand canvas the music craves.

What to Listen For

Listen, in ‘Daybreak’, for one of music’s great sunrises: trickling streams in the woodwinds and harps, mist lifting from the strings, and a long melodic swell as the sun floods the stage, a slow, ecstatic crescendo of pure orchestral colour. The ‘Pantomime’ centres on a famous flute solo, the god Pan wooing the nymph Syrinx, sinuous and tender. Then the ‘Danse générale’ erupts in a whirling, asymmetrical 5/4 rhythm, driving the whole orchestra to a delirious, pounding close.