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Madécasses

March 24th, 2009 Posted in classical music, youtube

I heard these on NPR last night, and for a few minutes thought they might be late Shostakovich songs that I hadn’t heard before:

YouTube Preview Image

YouTube Preview Image

YouTube Preview Image

It turns out they are by Ravel. They are the chansons madécasses. It’s the sparse orchestration and off-white tonality which reminded me of late Shosty — but these dudes are from the 1920s instead of the 1960s.

This was the the first time I had listened to anything by Ravel since a certain wannabe love interest tried (and failed) to get me pumped up about the rapsodie espagnole.

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