Ravel in Seattle

Ravel arrived in Seattle on 11 February 1928, by train from Los Angeles, in good time for his recital on 13 February 

in the Spanish Ballroom of the Olympic Hotel (now the Fairmont Olympic Hotel). His programme included a mixture of piano works and songs, for which he was joined by the soprano Lisa Roma, and the event began with an introductory lecture which Ravel had written on the subject of contemporary French music. (It was read in English, but not by Ravel whose command of the language was minimal.)

The city gave him an upbeat reception, firstly with an article in the local daily paper introducing him with some biographical details and an explanation of his significance (Seattle Daily Times, 12 Feb. 1928), and then with some positive reviews of the event itself.

“A master of shifting hues, of subtly contrived modulation, he is a tonal painter of moods… His is not music for the popular ear; nor, on the other hand, would it be fair, in this day of change, to dismiss it as mere coterie music… Ravel is … a salient musical personality, a composer who has made no melodramatic breaks with the past, but who works, nevertheless, in a new idiom.” (Everhardt Armstrong, in Seattle Post Intelligencer, 14 February 1928, p.HH**).

“…Ravel has mastered the piano himself only well enough to enable him to compose for it. His music is full of rapid passages in which the supple wrist is the chief motor force. The thumb is unusually important in his fingering, and the hand rests quietly on the keys, with the astonishing equilibrium and self-possession that marks his spirit, while the agile fingers produce his music of rich coloring.” (Seattle Daily Times, 14 February 1928, p.21).

The composer was duly rewarded with vociferous applause. His next destination was Vancouver. (** as quoted in Dunfee [1980] pp.139-140.)