Ravel composed his Introduction et Allegro in 1906, the year in which Schönberg wrote his first Chamber Symphony, Janacek his piano sonata and Roussel his Divertissement. It was the year Cézanne and Ibsen died and Samuel Beckett was born. It was also the year of the San Francisco earthquake.

The composition, the result of commercial and artistic rivalry, owes its existence to the history of the solo instrument of the ensemble, the harp.

Instrument maker Sébastian Erard left Paris during the French Revolution, setting up business in Great Malborough Street in London. It was here that in the early 1800s he patented the double action pedal harp, essentially the modern concert instrument. He returned to Paris in the 1830s.

M. Erard’s harp was tuned diatonically, which is to say that all its strings were tuned, initially, to the seven notes of the major scale of C-flat. The pitch of the strings was then altered by means of seven pedals whose ‘double action’ raised each note by either a half-tone or whole-tone (e.g. from C-flat to C-natural to C-sharp).

The problem with Erard’s system was that, with the increasing use during the 19^th century of chromaticism (notes and chords from outside the major/minor melodic/harmonic scheme), the pedal harp was seen as unable to respond quickly enough to the rapid harmonic changes and sidesteps demanded by late 19^th century composers. Gustave Lyon of Pleyel, Wolff et Cie addressed himself to this difficulty and, in 1894, came up with an answer: a harp with an additional set of strings corresponding to the black notes of the piano – the pedal-less chromatic harp. In fact chromatic harps had existed long before M. Lyon invented his version, but Pleyel, clearly impressed by Lyon’s design, started to produce the instrument commercially and, as a marketing ploy, the company decided to commission several French composers to write works for their new harpe chromatique. So, in 1904, at the instigation of Maison Pleyel, Debussy wrote his Danse sacrée et danse profane for harp and string orchestra, which the composer duly dedicated ‘à M. Gustave Lyon’.

Maison Erard was not long in responding to this challenge. Their manager, Albert Blondel, approached Ravel, Debussy’s obvious rival (Ravel’s ‘Debussyian’ string quartet had also sowed the seeds of genuine bad feeling between the two composers), asking for a new work to demonstrate the virtues of Erard’s pedal harps. Ravel’s reaction was uncharacteristic: the ‘Swiss watchmaker’, who, by his own admission, was an extremely slow workman, went into a paroxysm of activity, and within a week (which included three sleepless nights) had completed what he called his Introduction et Allegro pour Harpe avec accompagnement de Quatour à Cordes, Flûte et Clarinette. The work received its first performance on the 22^nd February, 1907 under the auspices of the music circle of the French Photographic Society. It is dedicated ‘à M. Albert Blondel’.

It is a tribute to the talents of both composers that both these works remain firmly in the concert repertoire. Debussy, or perhaps Durand (his publishers), wisely as it transpired, hedged his bets and made his Danse sacrée et danse profane also playable, with minor changes, by the pedal harp. Nevertheless it is a curiously restrained affair. Deprived for the greater part of what is perhaps its chief characteristic, the glissando (the chromatic harp, being pedal-less could only play glissandi on what are the white or black notes of the piano) Debussy’s harp sounds oddly unharplike, while Ravel’s writing, making full use of the glissando effects available on the pedal harp, could be described as the quintessential.

The piece, written in Ravel’s best plein-airist manner, is in the key of Gb major. So attractive and elegant is the surface of the music that it comes as something of a surprise to discover that it is actually written in sonata form and is easily recognisable as the first movement of a concerto.

The Introduction is in two parts. The first (Très lent) opens with a flute and clarinet theme answered by the strings followed by harp arpeggios. This opening wind theme and its string ‘answer’ are cyclic in the best Frankian manner and reappear throughout the work in different transformations. The process is then reversed: strings, woodwind answer, harp arpeggio leading to…

The first subject (in Gb major) is first played by solo harp and is a transformation of the string ‘answer’ of the opening. The other instruments join in after 18 bars sharing melody (principally flute) and accompaniment. A harp flourish announces a new theme in flute and clarinet (second subject). This is taken up by the strings and extended by the wind and harp. A mysterious episode follows (Un peu plus lent) in which Ravel plays the opening flute and clarinet theme and its string ‘answer’ simultaneously on muted strings and harp. The extension of the second subject, accompanied by harp glissandi, reasserts itself and the end of the exposition is marked by a harp solo followed by a bridge passage (repeating the previous material but substituting woodwind triple-tonguing for harp glissandi).

The second subject starts the development section on clarinet accompanied by pizzicato strings. Ravel soon combines this with the first subject in augmentation (twice as slow) in the harp. This superimposition of the two themes continues throughout a development that takes the form of an extended accelerando and leads via a Très Animé section to the harp cadenza.

Maison Erard must have been well pleased by what follows – from its double-forte opening to its whispered glissandi and harmonics Ravel’s cadenza demonstrates the pedal harp’s strengths dazzlingly. It is also of interest formally, since it is, in effect, a reprise of the Introduction. Not only are the two opening themes represented, but, for the first time, the ’cello solo returns (in an ethereal version played in harmonics in the harpist’s left hand).

As in any classical concerto, the recapitulation follows, and the harp, ending its cadenza on dominant harmony, leads the return to Gb major. The recapitulation is shorter than the exposition with the second subject appearing on the harp rather than the woodwind. It is succeeded by an extended coda in which the second subject tensed until it opens on the final return of the first subject double-forte, bringing the work to a close.

There are two song cycles that I have long wanted to write – this is one of them. Christian Morgenstern’s nonsense poetry has a mixture of humour and seriousness, innocence and satire that I find difficult to resist. The sneezewort sonata, the werewolf who’s fascinated by grammar, the midnight mouse, von Korf (who has grave doubts about his existence) and his friend Palmström with their novel approach to rodent infestation, these are just a few of the fabulous creatures that live in these poems.
Korf had a special clock with two sets of hands, one of which ran backwards (thereby robbing time of its terrors). Morgenstern was less fortunate: born in Munich in 1871 to a family of landscape artists he contracted tuberculosis while still at university and died at forty-two. During this shortened life he collaborated with Ibsen on a German translation of his work, and, after meeting Rudolf Steiner in 1909 produced a significant body of anthroposophical and mystical writing. Yet it would seem that it is by his books of nonsense poetry that he is best remembered.

The three poems I have chosen to set are:
Die Mausefalle (The Mousetrap)
Die Behörde (The Official Form)
Korf erfindet eine Art von Witzen… (Korf discovers a new sort of joke…)

My German being (like von Korf) for all intents and purposes non-existent, I should like to thank Mrs Antje Dyson for her invaluable help with the pronunciation and syllabification of the verse and to attribute all error to where it rightly belongs: myself.