Maurice Ravel's "Color Counterpoint" through the Perspective of Japonisme *

1. IntroductionIt's been given to [Ravel] to bring color back into French music.. . . At first he was taken for an impressionist. For a while he encountered opposition. Not a lot, and not for long. And once he got started, what production!--Leon-Paul Fargue, 1920s (quoted in Beucler 1954, 53)Don't you think that it slightly resembles the gardens of Versailles, as well as a Japanese garden?--Ravel describing his Le Belvedere, 1931 (quoted in Orenstein 1990, 475)In "Japanizing" his garden, Ravel made unusual choices, like his harmonies. His love for the style japonais responded to his own taste for what was precious and perfect. Did he not have a small salon where le Japon brought together the most incongruous of objects?--Helene Jourdan-Morhange 1938 (196)[1.1] This article develops an aesthetic orientation called "color counterpoint," inspired by Ravel's dedication to fantasy as evidenced by his fascination with Chinese and Japanese art and calligraphy. Drawing upon visual and literary Japonisme in France--the impact of style japonais on the Parisian arts and letters--I provide a historical and graphical context to demonstrate how Ravel's musical textures may have been shaped by East Asian pictorial imagery. Music analyses focus on selected textures in "Habanera," and "Le grillon" (from Histoires naturelles), and are compared to the opening measures of Jeux d'eau and the Sonata for Violin and Cello. I chose these textures not only to illustrate a particular analytical technique, but also to illuminate a particular method of interpretation.[1.2] The first premise guiding my methodology is that Ravel's musical textures are best understood as being miniaturist and almost visual. Miniaturism is defined here as the craft of expressing profundity or intensity of feeling within a limited space or time. Texture is defined as a phenomenon generated by a type of additive process, as explained by Ralph Turek:Additive process: A compositional technique frequently employed by Stravinsky and other twentieth-century composers in which a texture is created through the gradual superposition of diverse and unchanging elements. These elements (a melodic figure, a rhythmic ostinato, and so on) typically are heard separately at first. Their subsequent combination and recombination in various registers and instrumental groups may be seen as a form of development. (Turek 1992, 551)Ravel's additive approach to texture, I will argue, involves structures in miniature.(1) My second premise, in the words of art historian Simon Shaw-Miller, is "that no such easy division between 'music' and 'image' or 'music' and 'vision' can be made, that even with classical music, vision shadows sound" (2013, xiii). Through an interpretive analysis grounded in historical viewpoints and a consideration of the composer's inclinations toward miniaturism, I propose that a strong familiarity with style japonais as a visual language offers a clearer conceptual awareness of Ravel's musical language and overall aesthetic.[1.3] Through my conception of color counterpoint, I investigate the sensations and possible meanings of particular additive attributes and behaviors: contrapuntal layering of textural elements, strict immediate repetition, and temporal juxtaposition of contrasting elements. "Color" as applied to sound avoids narrower definitions focusing on instrumental timbre alone and encompasses ornamental gestures in instrumental music and vocal coloratura. "Counterpoint" communicates the polyphonic nature of diverse gestures and prolonged streams of musical texture coming in simultaneous or nearly simultaneous contact with one another.(2) "Color counterpoint" expresses the music's mesmerizing undercurrents that can induce the sensation of floating or flying or the feeling of a dancer travelling across a stage, even in music that has traditionally been studied in terms of machine-like repetition. …