Work
Le Tombeau de Ravel
for solo guitar
Films, Audio & Samples
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About
In the late seventies I was hitch-hiking and busking my way around Northern France, eventually reaching Paris. A top priority was to visit the grave of Maurice Ravel at Lavallois-Perret cemetery. Finding the grave I spent an agreeable half an hour there with my guitar, musing. On leaving the cemetery I was pleasantly surprised to discover, just outside the walls, a small garden devoted to the composer named Square Maurice Ravel. Sitting in the garden, watching a mother and two children in the play area, I began to pick out a melodic sequence on the guitar infused with the spirit of Ravel, especially his Le Tombeau de Couperin.
Ideas flowed freely, and very quickly I had improvised a short piece which I eventually and aptly gave the title Le Tombeau de Ravel. I added two more short complementary pieces to the first to make a suite.
Two of the three movements were published in Guitar International Magazine on November 1988, which, recognising its French ambience, retitled it Gallic Serenade.
The piece has received some minor revisions and it now appears under its original name with the third movement restored.
– Denis Betro 2013
Contents note
I. Allegro
II. Largo Tranquillo
III. Moderato Graziano
Performance history
02 Feb 1988: Performed by Rose Andresier at the Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, in London, England.