”Don Quichotte à Dulcinée” by M. Ravel: the interpretative potential of the author's treatment of the text

Abstract

The present article provides an outline of an analysis of the vocal cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée by Maurice Ravel. The score has been examined from the perspective of identifying possible interpretative variants. For this purpose, the expressive means chosen by the composer to reveal the artistic content of the songs will first be characterized. Subsequently, three interpretative versions that treat the author’s text in different ways will be compared. The first belongs to the Canadian baritone Gerald Finley and the British pianist Julius Drake, the second to the French singer Gérard Souzay and the renowned American accompanist Dalton Baldwin, and the third to the German vocalist Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and the Swiss pianist Karl Engel. These interpretations were selected from a very large number of existing versions, based on the consideration that they are performed by world-renowned musicians known as outstanding performers of 19th–20th-century chamber and vocal music. The relevance of studying Ravel’s vocal cycle is determined by the fact that, although it represents a valuable achievement in French chamber vocal lyricism at the beginning of the 20th century and immediately attracted the attention of musicians, this work has not been sufficiently researched from interpretative perspectives.