Ragtime - Influence On The Old Continent

Influence On The Old Continent

The first considerable composer who is interested seriously to ragtime was Anton Dvoràk. On the same wavelength had moved the french Claude Debussy, sometimes criticized for having a little overlooked the rhythm in his music. The first contact with the ragtime was probably at the Paris Exposition, one of the stages of the European tour of John Philip Sousa. Clarity of syncopated speech wave had struck fatally not romantic sensitivity to Debussy, enough to let him emulate three ragtime pieces for piano. The best-known remains the Golliwog's Cake Walk of 1908, filled with irony and rope-walking cartoon. Later He returned to that style with two preludes for piano: Minstrels, (1910) and General Lavine-excentric (1913), inspired by a clown Médrano circus. On Maurice Ravel is told that during a stay in Chicago attending assiduously a room where the Group was performing with Jimmy Noone, toward which would have shown considerable interest. Apart from an imprecise anecdotal remains unquestionable Ravel's involvement for the jazz, having regard to the considerable imprimatur to this music in many of his works of some importance: for example in fox-trot of L'enfant et les sortilèges, the blues of the Sonata for violin and piano, Concerto in G and the Concerto for the left hand, both for piano composed in 1931. Analogue speech is for some works by Darius Milhaud: for example, the ballets Le boeuf sur le toite, Creation du Monde, which he wrote after a trip to Harlem during his trip in 1922. Even the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger wrote works in which is pretty obvious the influence of African American music. Testimonials are Pacific 231, Prélude et Blues and especially the Concertino for piano and orchestra. And again Erik Satie and Georges Auric, Honegger, Milhaud and belong to the Group of six in Paris, have never made any secret of their sympathy for ragtime, which is sometimes evident in their works. Remember in particular the ballet of Satie, Parade (Ragtime du Paquebot, (1917). The first signal of Satie's music on American soil is manifested in Overture for piano for the drama in three acts composed in the early 1900s in memory of his friend J.P. Contamine de Latour, entitled La Mort de Monsieur Mouche. In 1902 the American cakewalk had a great spread in Paris and Satie contributed two years later with two rags, La Diva de l'empire and Piccadilly. Despite the two Anglo-Saxon settings tracks appeared blatantly American-inspired. La Diva de l'empire -a march sung- was written for Paulette Darty and initially bore the title Stand-Walk Marche, only for piano soloist, later subtitled Intermezzo Americain when Rouarts-Lerolle the reprinted in 1919. The Piccadilly (another march) initially titled The Transatlantique, portrayed the stereotype of wealthy American heir who was sailing on the first ocean liners on the route New York-Europe to trade his fortune to an aristocratic title in Europe.