Composers Datebook

"La Valse" -- one of the most popular orchestral works of Maurice Ravel -- was performed for the first time this day in 1920 by the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris, conducted by Camille Chevillard. Ravel's score was subtitled a "choreographic poem for orchestra in the tempo of the Viennese waltz." "La Valse" is a far more Impressionistic work than any of the waltzes by the Strauss Family. It is certainly darker. Ravel himself said, "I had intended this work to be a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, with which was associated in my imagination an impression of a fantastic and fatal kind of Dervish's dance." "La Valse" was written for the great ballet impresario Serge Diagalev, who apparently found it undanceable, and his failure to stage "La Valse" caused a serious rift in his friendship with Ravel. The contemporary composer Judith Lang Zaimont is an unabashed Ravel enthusiast—"Ravel's music defines 'gorgeous,'" says Zaimoint, "it's beguiling to the ear, and sensuous. His textures are built in thin layers, like a Napoleon pastry, and his intricate surfaces—beautifully worked-out—shine and fascinate." Judith Lang Zaimont should know. For many years she taught composition at the University of Minnesota, and her own solo piano, chamber and orchestra works are increasingly finding their way into concert halls and onto compact disc.