Pavane pour une infante défunte

• Ravel originally composed Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) for two pianos in 1899. He made the familiar orchestral version in 1910.¹
• Ravel composed this work while he was studying composition with Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatoire.²
• Ravel dedicated this piece to Winaretta Singer, the Princesse de Polignac, a Paris salon hostess. The Princess was a patron of many contemporary composers, including Debussy and Fauré.³
• Genre: Pavane is a 16^th/17^th C. processional dance from Italy. During its popularity it was danced in Germany, France, England and Spain as well.
• Ravel himself criticized this work as excessively indebted to Chabrier.⁴
• According to the Oxford Companion to Music, this piece “recalls the Spanish court custom of performing a solemn ceremonial dance at a time of royal mourning.”⁵

“Do not attach any importance to the title. I chose it only for its euphonious qualities. Do not dramatize it. It is not a funeral lament for a dead child, but rather an evocation of the pavane which could have been danced by such a little princess as painted by Velázquez.”

Maurice Ravel⁶

• Because Ravel chose the title for its “euphonious qualities,” not actually to describe a rite for a dead princess, it could be nice to announce the title in French.

1. Barbara L. Kelly, “Ravel, (Joseph) Maurice,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed December 11, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000052145. 
2. Maurice Ravel, Pavane pour une Infanta défunte: Study Score, ed. Carl Simpson (Serenissima Music, 2004), 2, accessed January 2, 2020, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Pavane_Pour_Une_Infante_Defunte/w6R6BqI27IkC?hl=en&gbpv=1. 
3. Janet Horvath, “The Great Women Artists Who Shaped Music XIX: Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac,” Interlude (May 15, 2016), accessed January 2, 2020, https://interlude.hk/great-women-artists-shaped-music-xix-winnaretta-singer-princess-de-polignac/. 
4.  Peter Kaminsky, “Ravel’s Approach to Formal Process,” in Unmasking Ravel: New Perspectives on the Music Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press, 2011), 87. 
5. “Pavane pour une infante défunte,” in The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed January 2, 2020, https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199579037.001.0001/acref-9780199579037-e-5050. 
6. Quoted in Herbert Glass, Pavave for a Dead Princess: Maurice Ravel, Los Angeles Philharmonic, accessed January 2, 2020, https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/548/pavane-for-a-dead-princess.