Just in time for this 150th anniversary year of Maurice Ravel’s birth, French scholars have unearthed an almost forgotten work written when Ravel was a student at the Paris Conservatoire: a prelude, dance and aria for “Sémiramis,” a cantata that was never completed.
On March 13, the New York Philharmonic will give the premiere of the prelude and danse, five minutes of music that Gustavo Dudamel, the orchestra’s music director-designate, calls “a small, beautiful jewel.” Those instrumental pieces and the aria will be performed in December by the Orchestre de Paris.
The “Sémiramis” score, housed in the archives of the the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, is more than a sketch but not a finished product. “The manuscript lacks a tempo marking at the start, and there appear to be some missing notes, including in the harp line,” The New York Times’ Javier C. Hernández writes.
Filling in those blanks adds to the pressure of preparing a premiere, Dudamel tells Hernández. “The only thing I can hope for is that [Ravel] will send a message to me secretly through my dreams.”
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