“Miroirs” by Maurice Ravel was composed during 1904-05 and given its premiere in 1906. Meaning “Reflections,” the work demonstrates the development of Ravel’s technique as a composer of piano music, which had first leapt into maturity in his 1901 piece, Jeux d’eau.
Ravel’s treatment of the vast possibilities of the piano was simultaneously inspired by the style of Franz Liszt and the most profound advancement in piano technique since that great virtuoso’s time. This style came to be a cornerstone of French Impressionism and even influenced Ravel’s older contemporary, Claude Debussy.
“Une barque sur l’ocean” (“A Boat on the Ocean”) is the third piece of Miroirs and was dedicated to the painter Paul Sordes.
The lengthiest and quite possibly the most technically demanding piece in the suite, it is a piece of shimmering beauty and one of most evocative depictions of the ocean to ever be composed.
Ravel later orchestrated the piece, along with the following one (“Alborada del gracioso”). A single motif heard from the outset, with an inherent fluidity as it changes naturally between duple and compound meter, is the musical germ from which the entire movement springs. Beneath this ostinato-like motif are rippling arpeggios that conjure in the mind the waves of the ocean as they gently rock the boat back and forth.
You’ll likely be amazed by the beauty of this piece:
