Published 2008-01-01
“…Such a gap is hinted at in Berlioz’s own account of the program for the Symphonie
Fantastique: »The aim of the program is by no means to copy faithfully what the composer has tried to present in orchestral terms, as some people seem to think; on the contrary, it is precisely in order to fill in the gaps which the use of musical language unavoidably leaves in the development of dramatic thought, that the composer has had to avail himself of written prose to explain and justify the outline of the symphony«.While Berlioz’s statement posits one sort of gap at the heart of the program/music relationship, it becomes more relevant to Ravel’s music to consider the gap from the other direction and reverse Berlioz’s terms: thus the composer avails himself of the unique structural and expressive resources of music to connote their own meaning, in order to fill in the gaps which the limitations of the programmatic source unavoidably leave in the development of dramatic thought.…”
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