Ravel in Minneapolis

Ravel arrived in Minneapolis on 22 February 1928 for a recital that evening at the Art Institute, in which he was supported by the soprano Lisa Roma, the violinist Joseph Shadwick, and the Minneapolis String Quartet. 

There was a large audience, which was reported as having mixed responses to the generous selection of Ravel’s works in the programme, preferring the more familiar items like the Pavane and the String quartet.

The local reviewer was less impressed by the new offering of the jazz-inflected Sonata for violin and piano which “contributes nothing to the fame of the composer… Ravel is quoted as stating that American composers are not taking jazz seriously, probably ignoring that the main trouble with American art composers has always been that they have taken everything too seriously. That jazz, taken seriously without its abandon and vulgarity, is no longer jazz was fully demonstrated by the new sonata…”

For the songs, the soloist Lisa Roma provided prose translations of the texts to minimise the linguistic difficulties of which audiences sometimes complained, especially in the poetic narratives of the Histoires naturelles. On this occasion, Ravel and Lisa Roma gave a vocal encore which was a considerable rarity, an aria from his cantata Myrrha which had been written for his second attempt to win the Prix de Rome, and which had never been published. Whatever the reservations about the performances and even some of the compositions, the reviewer remained of the view that “Maurice Ravel is perhaps the greatest composer of the present day”. (Minneapolis Journal, 23 February 1928, p.13 – as quoted in Dunfee [1980] pp.111-112).

After completing his engagement in Minneapolis, Ravel returned to New York.