Tzigane

  

"Tzigane is a rhapsodic composition by the French composer Maurice Ravel. The original instrumentation was for violin and piano (with optional luthéal attachment).  

The first performance took place in London on 26 April 1924 with the dedicatee, Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Arányi, on the violin and Henri Gil-Marchex at the piano (with luthéal). In his biographical sketch of 1928 

Ravel spoke of it as "a virtuoso piece in the style of a Hungarian rhapsody".  

It consists of "a string of successive variations juxtaposed without development" 

In the early 1920s, Ravel had been planning a piece for violin and piano for his closest female friend, Hélène Jourdan-Morhange.  

Around the same time Ravel got to know d'Arányi when she played his Sonata for Violin and Cello with Hans Kindler in London,  

and afterwards regaled the composer with a selection of folk-tunes from her country. 

In the ensuing two years Ravel put aside the sonata he had intended for Jourdan-Morhange, who by then had retired from playing due to a chronic illness, and wrote the Tzigane. " 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzigane 

"The luthéal was a new piano attachment .

(first patented in 1919) 

 with several tone-colour registrations which could be engaged by pulling stops above the keyboard. 

 One of these registrations had a cimbalom-like sound, which fitted well with the gypsy tone of the composition" 

 

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"The name of the piece is derived from the generic European term for "gypsy" (in French: gitan, tsigane or tzigane rather than the Hungarian cigány) although it does not use any authentic Gypsy melodies."  

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'the preamble (Lassan) as "superior exercises – 

 runs,  

staccato notes,  

trills and mordents". 

 Then follow a succession of "gipsy improvisations – the Friska, then the Czardas", at the end of which 

 "the rhapsody becomes impatient  

and runs feverishly 

 through all kinds of successive tonalities  

without retaining any of them"