Prélude en la-mineur

Quatre Miniatures de 1913

I Maurice Ravel: Prélude en la-mineur

II Maurice Ravel: À la manière de Borodine

III Maurice Ravel: À la manière de Chabrier

IV Albert Roussel: Petit Canon Perpétuel

for chamber ensemble orchestrated by Klaus Simon (2021)

These instrumentations of four small piano pieces by Maurice Ravel and Albert Roussel from 1913 are arranged for almost the same instrumentation as Ravel's Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé (two flutes, two clarinets, piano and string quartet). I have chosen harp instead of piano (only in Roussel's case are both instruments exceptionally used) and added an oboe or English horn.

These four miniatures were part of a concert programme of the Holst Sinfonietta in January 2022 under the motto "Paris 1913", in which only works from that year were performed that were either composed or premiered in Paris. (So too Igor Stravinsky's Trois poésies de la lyrique japonaise and Maurice Delage's Quatre poèmes Hindous, also scored for almost the same instrumentation).

I have compiled these four short pieces under the title Quatre Miniatures de 1913 as a small mini-cycle. They also lend themselves very well to the combination of my instrumentation of Claude Debussy's Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé (also written in 1913), which is also published here. This arrangement is also published by Scodo (www.universaledition.com/trois-poemes-de-mallarme-debussy-claude-ues102919-000). Each of these Quatre Miniatures de 1913 can of course also be played individually or, if performed in a cycle, in any other order.

May these charming miniatures by Ravel and Roussel find their way into many concert halls in this new guise (and possibly in combination with Debussy's Mallarmé songs).

Sibstin, August 2022

Klaus Simon

Performers of the world premiere on 25 January 2022 in the Ludwigskirche in Freiburg/D

Holst-Sinfonietta:

Julia Stocker ? 1st flute; Claire Garde ? 2nd flute and piccolo

Alexander Ott – Oboe and English horn

Lorenzo Salvá Peralta ? 1st clarinet and clarinet in Eb; Nicole Krüger ? 2nd clarinet and bass clarinet

Julia Weissbarth ? harp

Sylvia Oelkrug ? 1st violin; Cornelius Bauer ? 2nd violin

Filomena Felley ? viola; Philipp Schiemenz ? violoncello

Klaus Simon ? Musical Direction