This LacMus Festival ends as it had begun—in the realm of Ravel’s piano music. The works included in the first part of the program have him pursue his mental images—now abstract, as in the miniature Prélude en la mineur, now evoking dreamy images or ineffable entities, as in Miroirs, one of his highest achievements. The second part has works inspired by the physical impulse to dance, albeit idealized and turned into a vehicle for introspection, a means to communicate fleeting, elusive states of mind. The Valses nobles et sentimentales and La Valse are preceded by Ravel’s well-known Sonatine, interspersed with dance rhythms be they deliberately archaic, such as the minuet, or veiledly folk, such as those limping rhythms “in five,” hinting at the zortziko dance of his Basque ancestors.
