AMS Philadelphia 2009 Abstracts - American Musicological Society

Abstracts saturday morning 131
is commonly known, in life the composer adopted the aloof public personae of dandy and
bachelor-artist, presenting himself as an aesthetic project free from sexual entanglements.
Ravel’s avowed commitment to bachelorhood should be read in light of the strong currents
of suspicion brought to bear on the unmarried in the later nineteenth century, as Jean Borie
has shown in Le célibataire français. The question remains how such a nonconformist
orientation may resonate in Ravel’s creative expression. I draw theoretical insight from the
phenomenological approach of sociologist Henning Bech. Bech has analyzed the modern
homosexual condition in terms of personal “tunings” related to social stigma and incongruity.
In his account the experience of an ill fit with social norms leads to a variety of possible reactive
strategies (including aloofness, avoidance, fantasizing, provocation), many of which I find
suggestive of aesthetic strategies as well.
Armed with this insight, I develop a characterization of Ravel’s posture of ironic aloofness
as heard in three pieces: the song cycle Shéhérazade, and the piano pieces “Ondine” (from
gaspard de la nuit) and Valses nobles et sentimentales. Focusing on the representation of erotic
desire to make the queer connections more cogent, I consider dramatic scenarios, gestural
patterns, and climactic passages, paying particular attention to rhetorical effect and expressive
tone. Rather than offering detailed readings of individual pieces, I identify an array of tropes
(self-containment, paradox, teasing, evasion) bespeaking an ironic conception of desire.