Abstract Ravel was an important composer between the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, and played an influential role in the history of piano music. His innovative composing style and techniques were not only reflected his distinctive personal traits but also intimately related to the contemporary art of his time. Ravel¡¦s piano work, ¡©Le Tombeau de Couperin¡ª, which was written between 1914 and 1917, includes six pieces:¡©Prelude¡ª,¡©Fuge¡ª,¡©Forlane¡ª,¡©Rigaudon¡ª,¡©Menuet¡ªand¡©Toccata¡ª. The thesis is divided into five sections. The first section presents Ravel¡¦s life and career. The second section is about Ravel¡¦s compositional styles. The third section is about the compositional background of ¡©Le Tombeau de Couperin¡ªand neoclassical qualities. The fourth section is to explore the musical structures of ¡©Le Tombeau de Couperin,¡ªespecially in the formal structure, harmony and melody. The fifth section is the analysis of ¡©Le Tombeau de Couperin¡ªwhich emphasizes the author¡¦s performing practices and interpretations. When playing this composition, besides the quality of timbre, articulation, dynamics, and speed of playing, the player should express more in interpretation in music by understanding its compositional background and compositional method.

Anachronistic appropriation of earlier music or musical styles creates an inherent conflict of temporalities. Ravel's compositions based on historical dance forms present a particularly rich medium for investigating these kinds of historical tensions. Whether the minuet in Minuet antique (1895), the waltz in La valse (1919-20) and Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911), or the forlane or rigaudon in their respective movements of Le tombeau de Couperin (1914-17), these forms bring with them associations regarding historical place, and ties between musical norms and expression of temporality. The temporalities expressed in these works are not straightforward linear dramas but rather tension-laden and multifaceted. This paper selects three of these works -- Valses nobles et sentimentales, the forlane from Le tombeau de Couperin, and La valse -- to show how a complex sense of time is expressed by Ravel in different ways. While these three pieces differ greatly in execution, they are similar in impulse: each of the three takes different approaches to intertextual and intratextual problematicization of temporality. In analyzing these three works, the first framework is one of intertextuality -- to what extent does the work connect itself to a specific work, composer, and style, and what structural and aesthetic expectations are brought into play via these connections. Each of the three works treats this question in differing ways -- the "Forlane" of Le tombeau de Couperin explicitly appropriates the music of Couperin, La valse interacts not as much with a specific work or even composer but with the genre of the waltz as a whole, and Valses nobles et sentimentales creates an intentional rift between the waltzes of Ravel and those of Schubert. But while differing in the degree of influence or quotation, each of these draws in expressive and structural prototypes and creates tensions of temporality that are worked through in the context of each piece -- dialects between past and present, conflicts in both structure and meaning. Through entering into dialogical relationships with the works, forms, and genres of the past, these three works gain potentials for expression. / text

Sammanfattning Detta är en beskrivning av hur man kan transkribera musik och på så vis åstadkomma intressanta nya stämmor. Som exempel har jag arrangerat tre satser ur Maurice Ravels verk Le Tombeau de Couperin för fagottkvartett. / <p>Arkiverad ljudfil finns:</p><p>Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin - Il Menuet.</p><p></p>

Ravel' s "Tombeau de Couperin," a suite for piano, was published in 1918 by Durand. Its first performance was in the Salle Gaveau in Paris in April, 1919. Shortly afterwards Ravel scored four of the six movements of the piano suite for small orchestra, composed of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns in pairs, English horn, trumpet, harp, and strings, The new version was introduced in America in 1920. The four orchestrated movements, Prelude, Forlane, Menuet, and Rigaudon, have no programmatic content and the titles identify the forms used. "Le Tombeau de Couperin" is a souvenir of World War I. Each movement is dedicated to the memory of a French soldier fallen in battle. The "Tombeau" form dates from the seventeenth century and is a musical "homage" to Francois Couperin, clavecinist of Louis XIV, and one of the great names of French music. "The separate movements, cast in eighteenth century dance forms often used by Qouperin have been described as "tonal wreaths," not too somber nor too profuse, laid with tenderness on an unforgotten tomb." This piece represents Ravel's extreme effort to express himself in the simplest possible manner. The music is subtly archaic; form, line and texture artfully suggest eighteenth century, but the harmony suggests twentieth century. "A transparent serenity full of color and feeling pervades this piece of classic purity written in tribute to Ravel's fallen comrades." A study of the piano suite has been made. The pieces are charmingly and precisely orchestrated. They have been used for a ballet which will not be dealt with.

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