Ravel in Toronto

Ravel arrived in Toronto on Sunday 18 March 1928 and stayed in the city for several days. He immediately gave an interview to a local newspaper, in which he declared his intention of visiting Niagara Falls (20 March) “to get a new theme for composition”. (Toronto Daily Star, 19 March 1928**). (According to Eugène Lapierre, in his biography of Calixa Lavallée (Montréal, Fides, 1966), Ravel is supposed to have exclaimed on seeing Niagara Falls, “Quel majestueux si bémol”, [“What a majestic B flat.”])

On 22 March Ravel gave a recital at the Margaret Eaton Hall in Toronto, alongside the soprano Lisa Roma and Quatuor Hart House. The programme was essentially the same as one given earlier in Vancouver, except for the substitution of the Rigaudon from Le tombeau de Couperin and the String quartet. According to one reviewer there was a “capacity crowd” from whom Ravel “received a veritable ovation”, in spite of his limitations as a performer. (The Globe (Toronto), 23 March 1928**).

Not everyone was as well pleased. The critic of the Evening Telegram (23 March 1918**) did not like Ravel’s music or the performance. “His playing, and Miss Roma’s singing, ignored the emotions entirely… Since Ravel might have been a chemist, or a surgeon or a painter, it is absurd to expect emotions in his work.”

The first hour of the recital was broadcast on the radio (station CFCA of the Toronto Daily Star). (Potvin [1988] p.156-158).

Harry Adaskin, the second violin of the Quatuor Hart House, recalled his encounters with Ravel in the first volume of his memoirs. According to him, Ravel visited Toronto immediately after his arrival in America in order to rehearse with the quartet prior to their performance in New York on 15 January. He also records that Ravel stayed at the King Edward Hotel – where he found that the chef was an old friend. However, there does not appear to be enough time in Ravel’s January schedule for this visit to have taken place then, and since Adaskin was writing nearly fifty years after the event, it seems likely that he has confused the timing of their various meetings. At their first play-through of the String Quartet in front of Ravel – wherever it was – the composer commented, “Ce n’était pas comme ça que j’ai conçu le quatuor”. (“That was not how I conceived the quartet.” But he added, “You play it with such conviction that any change would be unwise”. (Harry Adaskin, A fiddler’s world: memoirs to 1938. Vancouver, November House, 1977. p.170-171).

(** quoted in Potvin [1988] pp.156-158).