LDV104

20 BALLETS La Valse is a complex work. Which piano version did you choose, and how do you view the music? La Valse had its origins in a commission from Diaghilev. Ravel initially wrote a version for piano accompanied by indications of orchestration, intended for presentation to the impresario. Then came the orchestral score and another score for two pianos, which clearly produces an orchestral effect. I made use of both these subsequent versions to complement the original piano score in order to recreate that orchestral sound. I didn’t want to conceive La Valse as a tragedy. For me, it remains imbued with the spirit of the Viennese waltz. We can imagine ourselves moving from one room to another: the dancers are not the same, they wear different costumes. La Valse is made up of a series of musical pictures. That’s why Diaghilev said: ‘It’s a masterpiece, but it isn’t a ballet. It’s a painting of a ballet.’ I agree the piece has that whiff of decadence, but it’s a liberating, festive kind of decadence. This music looks forward to a new, post-war world. It no longer belongs to the closed circle of Viennese society. Ravel the humanist offers it to the world, and it ends in an apotheosis.