Maurice Ravel in 1912Maurice Ravel in 1912Sometimes the human voice is used almost as an instrument and one case where this is true is the wordless chorus used in Maurice Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloe. The opening of the ballet represents a meadow near the grotto of the sacred nymphs, on a spring afternoon. The wordless voices just seem like a gentle breeze blowing through the trees. Think of that as you listen to the opening.
Although the chorus sings briefly in other sections of the ballet, the next major portion is the interlude at the beginning of the Second Act. It is night, and represents the pirate camp to which Chloe has been abducted. You might think of it as a passage that represents the sleeping pirates.
It’s interesting to note that Alban Berg used a similar effect in his opera Wozzeck when the title character is asleep in the barracks and the other soldiers are asleep. Note the similarity of the sound although the harmonies are radically different.
Finally, we come to the end of the ballet in which an orgiastic dance is being performed. It’s a very wild number in the asymmetrical meter of 5/4 divided 3 and 2. Here the choir turns on the eroticism and it reaches the point that one might think the singers are in the throes of sexual abandon, It calls forth some of Ravel’s greatest music. Listen!
The tragic thing about the life of Maurice Ravel is that towards the end of it he was involved in a car accident. He suffered head injuries which no one could solve. At the end he had aphasia and it had an unusual effect on him. For one thing he lost the ability to compose, and further, he could no longer sight-read piano music. Evidently, he could play anything he had learned before the accident, but he lost the ability to learn anything new. How much music was left inside of him that he could no longer express??
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