{"id":4820,"date":"2018-11-26T10:27:38","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T15:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/?p=4820"},"modified":"2021-04-15T21:54:01","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T01:54:01","slug":"i-have-cap-and-bells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/2018\/11\/i-have-cap-and-bells.html","title":{"rendered":"“I have cap and bells”"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a prospective student played Maurice Ravel’s “Alborada<\/a> del gracioso<\/a>,” I asked the not-so-simple question: “What’s the melody?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ravel: “Alborada del gracioso,” (1905) from Miroirs<\/em><\/p>\n

The student did not have a ready answer; after a moment suggesting the opening melody might be the music played by the pianist’s left hand:
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nIt seems to me that “Alborada” utilizes the technique (seen in Franz Liszt’s piano music) of dividing\u00a0a musical line between left and right hands.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Liszt: Orage<\/em><\/p>\n

In several instances, in texts by Liszt, the musical line is formed from the notes played by alternating left-hand and right-hand thumbs. In Ravel\u2019s “Jester\u2019s Morning Song,”<\/a> the beginning melodic line is formed by the lowest notes played in the right-hand chords and the notes played by the left hand:
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nThere are some collisions when both thumbs play at the same time. (In my opinion, at these collision points the thumbs should play together on the beat; the quick arpeggiated notes of the right-hand chords will happen after the beat.) Perhaps these collided “double notes” suggest highly-colored vocal sound, bent pitch, or a silly, mocking, thumbing-of-the-nose<\/a> or through-the-nose style of song? Those quick arpeggiated chords might signify the jangle of tiny bells?<\/p>\n

There is metric ambiguity: 2 strong accents per measure allow us to hear 2 groups of 3 eighth-notes, and yet, simultaneously, each measure of melody also seems to consist of 3 groups of 2 eighth-notes. This shadow hemiola<\/a> is part of the mockery, the deliberate awkwardness, or swagger. It\u2019s a chromatic sing-song<\/a> of continuous eighth-notes.<\/p>\n

Ravel’s “Alborada del gracioso” has intertextuality<\/a> with W.B. Yeats’ poem that describes a jester wooing a queen, \u00a0“The Cap and Bells.”<\/a><\/p>\n

‘I have cap and bells,\u2019 he pondered,
\n‘I will send them to her and die\u2019;
\nAnd when the morning whitened
\nHe left them where she went by.<\/p>\n

She laid them upon her bosom,
\nUnder a cloud of her hair,
\nAnd her red lips sang them a love-song…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here significant action is set in the morning — an “alborada,\u201d a morning song. Yeats’ poem was published in 1899, the year he first kissed Maud Gonne<\/a>, the person who may have inspired “The Cap and Bells.” Ravel composed “Alborada” in 1905; it was published in 1906. Also in 1905, Pablo Picasso sculpted\u00a0The Jester<\/em>. Works by Paul Cezanne and other European artists of the time featured commedia dell’arte<\/a><\/em> and circus characters. The Cirque Medrano<\/a> was popular with the artists of Paris.<\/p>\n

In 1908, Yeats finally consummated his relationship with Maud Gonne.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Maud Gonne, circa 1896<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Picasso: The Jester<\/em>, 1905<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a prospective student played Maurice Ravel’s “Alborada del gracioso,” I asked the not-so-simple question: “What’s the melody? Ravel: “Alborada del gracioso,” (1905) from Miroirs The student did not have a ready answer; after a moment suggesting the opening melody might be the music played by the pianist’s left hand: It seems to me that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1416,1417,1427,1429,1424,1421,1422,1423,1430,1413,1412,1410,26,1426,1181,384,1415,1418,1414,422,119,1428,375,1411,1425,1420,1419],"class_list":{"0":"post-4820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-alborada","9":"tag-alborada-del-gracioso","10":"tag-apaches","11":"tag-circus","12":"tag-clown","13":"tag-divided-hands","14":"tag-divided-hands-melody","15":"tag-fool","16":"tag-gracioso","17":"tag-hemiola","18":"tag-humor-in-music","19":"tag-jester","20":"tag-liszt","21":"tag-maud-gonne","22":"tag-maurice","23":"tag-meter","24":"tag-miroirs","25":"tag-morning-song","26":"tag-nasal","27":"tag-paris","28":"tag-parody","29":"tag-picasso","30":"tag-ravel","31":"tag-satire","32":"tag-shadow-hemiola","33":"tag-the-cap-and-bells","34":"tag-yeats","35":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4820"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5576,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4820\/revisions\/5576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}