Ravel's Sheherazade

[Guest]

I find this work endlessly fascinating but am usually left with a feeling of disappointment that there are only three songs, the last two accounting for only six minutes or so. Did Ravel plan a fourth? If so, why was it never completed or published? and if not, why such an unsatisfactory conclusion to the cycle?

Is it possible that the sexuality of the poet, Tristan Klingsor, is at the root of this? Klingsor was gay and his "orientalist" poetry is imbued with homo-eroticism. Ravel's choice of songs excludes the more explicit of the poems but his intention was to employ a tenor rather than a mezzo. He was persuaded by friends that this would cause tongues to wag- his own sexuality was always a mystery. Perhaps there was a concluding song that was considered too controversial.

But even as the songs stand, there is an overt homo-eroticism in the portrayal of the slave boy in La Flute Enchantee and the youth whom the traveller would like to have encountered in L'indifferent. I wonder whether Sheherazade is not only astonishingly beautiful music but also an insight into Ravel's sexuality?

[visualnickmos]

I'd always thought Ravel was gay, and that it is not exactly a 'hidden' fact.....

That said, I'm not quite sure what point you are making here?

[Ferretfancy]

I find this work endlessly fascinating but am usually left with a feeling of disappointment that there are only three songs, the last two accounting for only six minutes or so. Did Ravel plan a fourth? If so, why was it never completed or published? and if not, why such an unsatisfactory conclusion to the cycle?

Is it possible that the sexuality of the poet, Tristan Klingsor, is at the root of this? Klingsor was gay and his "orientalist" poetry is imbued with homo-eroticism. Ravel's choice of songs excludes the more explicit of the poems but his intention was to employ a tenor rather than a mezzo. He was persuaded by friends that this would cause tongues to wag- his own sexuality was always a mystery. Perhaps there was a concluding song that was considered too controversial.

But even as the songs stand, there is an overt homo-eroticism in the portrayal of the slave boy in La Flute Enchantee and the youth whom the traveller would like to have encountered in L'indifferent. I wonder whether Sheherazade is not only astonishingly beautiful music but also an insight into Ravel's sexuality?

I love the piece, but I don't share your wish for another song in the cycle, it is perfectly balanced. For me the whole work is about unfulfilled yearning, but not exclusively homo-erotic.
I would include Asie in the yearning category for it's wish for excitement and mystery.

As for Ravel's sexuality, as a gay man I have known plenty of other men with "gay" personalities who were completely heterosexual. Ravel may have been ambiguous in his sexual stance, but it isn't relevant to the music.

I might also mention that bluff English composers like Vaughan Williams and Arthur Somervell made settings of AE Housman, and you could easily find homo-eroticism in A Shropshire Lad.

[visualnickmos]

.....Ravel may have been ambiguous in his sexual stance, but it isn't relevant to the music.

Exactly.

I might also mention that bluff English composers like Vaughan Williams and Arthur Somervell made settings of AE Housman, and you could easily find homo-eroticism in A Shropshire Lad.

Quite so.
An artist - straight or gay, can present/create work that is homo-erotic or hetero-erotic - the sexuality of the composer, writer, painter, etc is quite irrelevant. As indeed, is the sex of a work's creator, for that matter.

[Flosshilde]

An artist - straight or gay, can present/create work that is homo-erotic or hetero-erotic

True, but while there are plenty of homosexual artists who have created hetero-erotic work (partly as a disguise, or to mislead people) I think that it is rather rare for it to be the other way round.

[Serial_Apologist]

Am I allowed to say I find the orchestral work of same title Ravel composed around the same time more interesting than the songs?

(Getting ready to duck...)

[visualnickmos]

True, but while there are plenty of homosexual artists who have created hetero-erotic work (partly as a disguise, or to mislead people) I think that it is rather rare for it to be the other way round.

..... or simply just because they wanted to produce the work!

[Ferretfancy]

True, but while there are plenty of homosexual artists who have created hetero-erotic work (partly as a disguise, or to mislead people) I think that it is rather rare for it to be the other way round.

Oh dear! So Tchaikovsky produced masterpiece after masterpiece just to deceive the witnesses?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How come "partly" has become "just to"?

[Flosshilde]

Oh dear! So Tchaikovsky produced masterpiece after masterpiece just to deceive the witnesses?

No, that's not what I said*. And when it comes to songs, rather than purely orchestral works, the choice of text could be significant. A composer choosing to set Michelangelo's poems could be indicating something.

*What I said was that I wasn't aware of any, or many, heterosexual composers setting texts that are clearly homoerotic, whereas there are homosexual composers who have set heteroerotic texts. This might be because they like them, or it might be because they want to throw up a smoke screen about their own interests, or it might be for any number of other reasons.

But I'm surprised one has to argue that point with you, Ferret.

[Barbirollians]

Dame Janet Baker for me in these works - though it is true to say they do not sound very homoerotic when she is singing them . It seems there are no extant tenor versions on record which is a shame .

[Ferretfancy]

No, that's not what I said*. And when it comes to songs, rather than purely orchestral works, the choice of text could be significant. A composer choosing to set Michelangelo's poems could be indicating something.

*What I said was that I wasn't aware of any, or many, heterosexual composers setting texts that are clearly homoerotic, whereas there are homosexual composers who have set heteroerotic texts. This might be because they like them, or it might be because they want to throw up a smoke screen about their own interests, or it might be for any number of other reasons.

But I'm surprised one has to argue that point with you, Ferret.

As I've already pointed out, heterosexual composers like Vaughan Williams and Somervell set texts by Housman which are clearly homo-erotic in character, but I don't believe that a person's sexuality must necessarily be expressed in the art they produce or the texts they choose.

[visualnickmos]

.....but I don't believe that a person's sexuality must necessarily be expressed in the art they produce or the texts they choose.

Exactly.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Exactly.

I agree - as, I think, did Flossie when he wrote "many" (not "all") and "partly" (not "entirely") in #5.

[Flosshilde]