Ravel is one of the most famous composers never to win the prestigious annual Prix de Rome administered by the Paris Conservatory, though he entered five times. Even though he was often a blatant frontrunner, corruption within the judging system, especially in their dismissal of his non-traditional harmonic style, eventually brought reform, but his third loss in 1903 brought with his dejection a need to take on some commissions purely for money. One of these, “Manteau des fleurs” (Cloak of flowers) meant he had to set a text by actor Paul Gravollet (pseudonym for Paul Barthélemy Jeulin), who somehow convinced twenty-two composers to set poems of his for a collection published in December 1905 under the title Les frissons. Ravel took pleasure in employing whole-tone chords and consecutive ninths that he had avoided for the Prix. Does the persistence of pink now resonate more with the 2024 Barbie revival craze?

The “Ballade de la reine morte d’aimer” (Ballad of the queen who died of love) is one of Ravel’s earliest song settings, written in 1893 just around the time when composing came to the forefront of Ravel’s career path alongside piano. It also coincided with his acquaintance with non-establishment figure Erik Satie. The text by Belgian writer Roland de Mar allowed Ravel to delve not only into Satie’s aesthetic as seen in his Trois mélodies (1887), but to invoke archaic-sounding fifths and especially the “great bells of Bohemia and the little bells of Thule.” Bell imagery would take on great significance in Ravel=s later works.

—©Jane Vial Jaffe

Texts and Translations

Manteau des fleurs

Toutes les fleurs de mon jardin sont roses,

Le rose sied à sa beauté.

Les primevères sont les premières écloses,

Puis viennent les tulipes et les jacinthes roses,

Les jolis oeillets, les si belles roses,

Toute la variété des fleurs si roses

Du printemps et de l’été!

Le rose sied à sa beauté!

Toutes mes pivoines sont roses,

Roses aussi sont mes glaïeuls,

Roses mes géraniums; seuls,

Dans tout ce rose un peu troublant,

Les lys ont le droit d’être blancs.

Et quand elle passe au milieu des fleurs

Emperlées de rosée en pleurs,

Dans le parfum grisant des roses,

Et sous la caresse des choses

Tout grâce, amour, pureté!

Les fleurs lui font un manteau rose

Dont elle pare sa beauté.

—Paul Gravollet

Ballade de la reine morte d=aimer

En Bohême était une Reine,

Douce soeur du Roi de Thulé,

Belle entre toutes les Reines,

Reine par sa toute Beauté.

Le grand Trouvère de Bohême

Un soir triste d’automne roux

Lui murmura le vieux: je t’aime!

Âmes folles et cœurs si fous!

Et la Très Belle toute blanche

Ballad of the Queen Who Died of Love

In Bohemia there once was a queen,

sweet sister to the king of Thule,

beautiful among all other queens,

queen by her beauty alone.

The great Bohemian trouvère

one sad evening in red autumn

murmured to her the old: “I love you!”

Crazy souls and such mad hearts!

And the all-white Pure Beauty

the gentle poet loved so much

that at that instant her white soul

expired toward the stars.

The great bells of Bohemia

and the little bells of Thule

pealed the supreme hosanna

of the queen who died of love.

Cloak of Flowers

All the flowers in my garden are pink,

pink suits her beauty.

The primroses are the first to bloom,

then come the tulips and the pink hyacinths,

The pretty carnations, such beautiful roses,

all the varieties of such pink flowers

of spring and summer!

Pink suits her beauty!

All my peonies are pink,

pink also are my gladioli,

pink my geraniums; however,

in all this disturbing pinkness,

the lilies have the right to be white.

And when she passes through the flowers

pearly with teardrops of dew,

among the heady perfume of roses,

and under the caress of these things

all is grace, love, purity!

The flowers make her a pink cloak

with which she adorns her beauty.

Le doux Poète tant aima

Que sur l’heure son âme blanche

Vers les étoiles s’exhala.

Les grosses cloches de Bohême

Et les clochettes de Thulé

Chantèrent l’hosana suprême

De la Reine morte d’aimer.

—Roland de Mar