Ravel- Le jardin Féerique

This piece is from Ravel's Mother Goose Suite, and is clearly a piece of Impressionism, due to the fact that it conjures the image of a quiet garden on a warm Summer's afternoon, through its use of the strings  being the predominant sound. The title also gives an indication that it is an Impressionist piece, because it tells us that the piece is about a garden full of fairies.
The piece begins with the strings playing long notes in what is almost homophony, but for the fact that the different instrument parts move at slightly different times. We can also hear lots of non-harmonic notes in this section, for example a suspension at 0:05 and a retardation at 0:25. This adds to the slightly tense, but still fairly mellow atmosphere that this beginning has. From about 0:28 to about 1:27, we get a very gradual crescendo, accompanied by the instruments' pitches getting higher and higher, which builds tension. At 1:18 the crescendo comes to a large, sustained, minor chord. This dies away and at 1:28 one of the violins has a solo, accompanied by just two vibraphones playing in parallel thirds in homophony, which gives the section a very light feel, especially as it is juxtaposed with the huge climax before it. This texture continues until 2:01, when more strings come in. At 2:27, a diminuendo brings the piece back to its usual calmness, as the strings recede by playing piano. At 2:51, a crescendo brings us into the penultimate section of the piece, where the strings play homophonically, as well as the bass clarinet (?), which maintains a steady crotchet-moving bass-line. This section's steady rhythm builds to 3:07, when bells come in with steady staccato quavers that underpin the other instruments here, giving this part a more dramatic feel, due to the denser texture and greater variety of articulation. Here the strings repeat the melody that they had previously, although at a slower tempo to indicate the end of the piece. The piece ends on a large tonic chord.


The piece