Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales and its Models
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Abstract
Most commentators have been content to accept Ravel’s claim that the reference to both the Valses nobles (D. 969) and the Valses sentimentales (D. 779) in the title of his Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911) “sufficiently indicates my intention of composing a series of waltzes in imitation of Schubert,” but this claim does not hold up under scrutiny. Instead, this article seeks to show that the Valses nobles et sentimentales is better understood as a Schumannian piano cycle. As such, the piece is a fascinating attempt at a rapprochement between French Modernism and German Romanticism shortly before the onset of the First World War.
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