Ravel in San Francisco

After spending three nights on the train from Chicago, Ravel arrived in San Francisco on or just before 1 February 1928, and promptly gave a newspaper interview in his hotel room at the Clift. He was in a teasing mood and produced some obligingly outrageous remarks for the journalist. “Degas was right, the arts ought to be discouraged. If this sort of thing goes on, we shall have a world of musicians, and then there will be no composers.” “The French are the most unmusical people in the world. Have you ever listened to their singing in the streets?” On being told that America aspired to be a great musical nation, he replied, “Then she must follow jazz. It may not be distinguished, but it certainly is real. By the way, the best jazz I ever heard was by an Englishman. Funny, isn’t it?” He then wanted to be told whether the horrors of prohibition were as terrible as reported, and went on to comment, “What an unnecessary law! If a people wants to be sober, it will be. If it doesn’t, you can’t make it so by act of Congress”. (San Francisco Examiner, 1 February 1928, p.6**).

His first public appearance was on 3 February at the Curran Theater where he conducted the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, with Lisa Roma as soprano soloist, 

and received from the local press some of the best notices of his whole tour. For example, “The program yesterday revealed the particular qualities which have made Ravel the most famous of living French composers. The colors of his orchestration, now flashing, now of the delicate tints of the early moments of an equatorial dawn, are his own special property. No composer of the present day has used the orchestra with such finesse. The pungent wit of his music is inimitable. The iridescence of his harmonies and the choiceness of his melodic invention are possible only to a musical patrician of his rank”. (Edward Harris, in San Francisco Bulletin, 4 February 1928, p.5**).

After this success, Ravel’s next appearance as a recitalist was felt to be a disappointment. 

On 4 February in the Colonial Ballroom of the St Francis Hotel he was joined by Lisa Roma and the violinist Mishel Piastro for a programme of his works, which was introduced by the French consul-general Maurice Hellman. One review headline set the tone of the response, “Ravel at piano fails to impress”. It went on to describe his playing as poor, while the much-heralded new Sonata for violin and piano was “Ravel’s only venture into unashamed cacophony”, and was even suspected of being a satire on ultra-modern music. (Edward Harris, in San Francisco Bulletin, 6 February 1928, p.8**).

Ravel’s reputation with concertgoers was probably restored when the orchestral concert of 3 February was repeated on 5 February – after which he departed for his next engagements in Los Angeles.

(** as quoted in Dunfee [1980] pp.131-138, 153-154.)