''Menuet antique'' is a piece for solo piano composed by

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

. The original piano version was written in 1895 and orchestrated by the composer in 1929. Ravel wrote the piece to pay tribute to Emmanuel Chabrier, who had welcomed his early works and helped to establish his musical reputation. The piano version was first performed on April 18, 1898 by Ricardo Viñes, a long-time friend to whom the composer dedicated the composition. Viñes also gave the premieres of many of Ravel's other works. The orchestral version was first heard in public on January 11, 1930. The form of the piece is ternary; a typical structure for a minuet. The A sections are more ambiguous with regard to a definite

tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitch (music), pitches and / or chord (music), chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived ''relations'', ''stabilities'', ''attractions'', and ''directionality''. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or ...

whereas the B section is more firmly rooted in major tonality. The

minuet A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually written in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''. The term also describes the musical form tha ...

form reappears in some of Ravel's later compositions, such as the central movement of the '' Sonatine'' and the fifth movement of ''

Le tombeau de Couperin ''Le Tombeau de Couperin'' (''The Tomb of Couperin'') is a suite (music), suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917. The piece is in six movements, based on those of a traditional Baroque music, Baroque suite. Each ...

''. The orchestral version is scored for an orchestra consisting of 2

flutes The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

, piccolo, 2 oboes,

English horn The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn (mainly North America), is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially ...

, 2 clarinets,

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...

, 2 bassoons,

contrabassoon The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower. Its technique is similar to its smaller cousin, with a few notable differences. Differences from the bassoon The Reed (mouthpie ...

, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones,

tuba The tuba (; ) is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece (brass), mouthpiece. It first appeared in th ...

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...

, and strings.

References

External links

Menuet Antique
Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project Solo piano compositions by Maurice Ravel 1895 compositions Compositions for symphony orchestra 1929 compositions Music with dedications Ravel {{Classical-composition-stub