Ravel Rapsodie Espagnole -Malaguena

The piece starts out in a pretty brisk three as assumed in a malaguena. The orchestration is pretty thin in the beginning. Ravel uses all the lower voices in the orchestra to keep things dark and murky yet clear at the same time. The clarity is heard in the pizzicatto of the basses, wherin the melody lies. The blass clarinet makes very short gestures, inserting itself into the melodic structure. The woodwinds and strings add short technical gestures as well. The woodwinds play a series of very long runs as the orchestration dies down again and a new section begins. The muted trumpet plays a melodic gesture that is more of a majestic and chin-held high melody. The strings then come in with a dynamic color change and play the same melody only augmented and legato instead of marcato. The phrase is also extended a couple of bars. There are a few bars of transitional material and development as that same melody is modulated and passed from trombone to trumpet as more crazy swells are heard. The oboe then has a serene melody that has no earthly right being in this dance as the strings play the 8th note motive from the first movement. The dance then picks up some momentum and starts from scratch but has more of a terminative feeling now as the piccolos and flutes play some nasy descending 8th note patterns as the piece ends very fragile like.