Interview: Ludovic Morlot of RAVEL MOTHER GOOSE at Benaroya Hall

On Jan. 30, Seattle Symphony Conductor Emeritus Ludovic Morlot continues his Ravel celebration this season to mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth. The program begins with Gabriel Fauré’s engaging Suite from Pelléas et Mélisande and includes young up and coming French composer Benjamin Attahir’s Concerto for Piano & Harp for pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Principal Harp Valerie Muzzolini. A new Seattle Symphony Co-commission, the piece is inspired by Ravel’s sketches for Morgiana, an Arabian Nights ballet.

The second half of the program features two of Ravel most dazzling gems. First, the Introduction and Allegro for Harp and Strings, which originally was written to draw attention to new and innovative designs for the harp. As the finale, the orchestra performs Ravel’s beloved Mother Goose in its entirety, with all its vibrantly rendered, evocative fairytale scenes.

Erica Miner interviewed Seattle’s favorite French maestro about his love for Ravel.

EM: Maestro, tell us more about your ambitious French program for the Seattle Symphony celebrating the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth with two of his most beloved works.

LM: I’m embracing the anniversaries or birthday years that we do for composers. Earlier this season we did a piece by Boulez, Livre pour cordes (“Book for Strings”), for what would have been his 100th anniversary, and on the same program the Shostakovich 8th. And of course 2025 being the big Ravel year, I insisted having with the Seattle Symphony this season some Ravel pieces in each of my programs. So we did the Left Hand Concerto, also on that fall program. And I will do his Ma mère l’oye and Introduction et allegro, which I haven’t done with them yet.

EM: What a gorgeous program. I’m sure the Seattle audiences will embrace it wholeheartedly.

LM: It’s also a Fauré anniversary this season, whose music we don’t program enough. Harmonically his music is fantastic. Pelléas et Mélisande we are happy to revisit, but it will remind me of the Fauré pieces we did early in my Seattle tenure. Then for this weekend’s program I commissioned a new Concerto for Piano and Harp. There’s very little written for those two instruments, and I thought in that context it would be interesting to see what a French composer would do with that combination. I challenged Benjamin Attahir, a wonderful young French composer, to write a piece for Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Symphony harpist Valerie Muzzolini. It’s subtitled Hanoï Songs, as in Vietnam, but scored in a Ravellian way. I’m really curious about this because Attahir is a composer I admire a lot. He wrote something quite beautiful, I think. Later on I will appear here with Boléro and Rhapsodie Espagnole. Every program with Seattle Symphony this year I wanted some Ravel.

EM: It is a very big anniversary, very exciting. I was curious about Attahir but found very little information, except that he’s only 35 years old.

LM: He is indeed very young. His music has been played mostly in France, a bit in Germany, but not really performed in the States. I wanted to give him a little push to America. He really deserves it. Beautiful craft. Of course when you commission a piece you never know what you’ll get, but I had faith he would come up with something interesting. I had wanted to do this for Jean-Yves and Valerie a while ago. They are my good friends. I hope the piece can travel to Europe after that.

EM: I’m sure Attahir will be up to the challenge.

LM: Yes. I look forward to it very much.

EM: What is the piece like?

LM: It’s really gorgeous. Beautiful. I’ve actually worked on it with Jean-Yves recently. Eight movements, little songs, that start with a simple melody and open up to a colorful orchestration. I will fully realize the wealth of colors once I’m in front of the orchestra. A lot of percussion in the mix, creating a bridge between the harp and the piano. It will be very original in the sound world.

EM: As usual, your programs are so innovative and creative and diverse.

LM: Thank you.

EM: I feel so lucky to see you perform twice with glorious music in two different venues in less than a month: both the Symphony and Les Troyens at Seattle Opera. Speaking of which, I saw your wonderful recent interview on YouTube with Fondation Maurice Ravel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3fj2mUWMb0). You mentioned Ravel’s captivating two one-act operas, L’enfant et les Sortilèges and L’Heure Espagnole, both of which I adore. Do you have any plans to perform them in the future?

LM: I’m performing them in Spain next year for sure, in Barcelona, because we will be performing and recording them. L’Heure Espagnole at the end of this season, in June. L’enfant et les Sortilèges next year in June. I’ve cast these and we will be doing them in the same ten days, performances and recording, as part of our complete Ravel recording project in Barcelona. I did L’enfant in a concert version in Seattle when I was there.

EM: I remember. It was absolutely luminous.

LM: But not L’Heure Espagnole, which I think they would play wonderfully in Barcelona. I think L’Heure Espagnolecould benefit from staging more than L’enfant, so that may be an idea for Seattle Opera as a double bill. I remember assisting Seiji Ozawa in a double bill of L’enfant and L’Heure Espagnole at Tanglewood when I was a fellow. He always liked to pair L’Heure Espagnole with Gianni Schicchi, which I think works very well. 

EM: Brilliant idea. They work together perfectly.

LM: I think so, yes.

EM: I imagine they’d go absolutely wild over L’Heure Espagnole in Barcelona.

LM: I hope so [Laughs].

EM: And I hope you will bring them both to Seattle sometime soon.

LM: Let’s hope so!

Morlot and the Seattle Symphony will perform their Ravel’s Mother Goose program Jan. 30-Feb. 1 at Benaroya Hall https://www.seattlesymphony.org/en/concerttickets/calendar/2024-2025/24sub10

Photo credit: Lisa Marie Mazzucco

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