Piano Forum

Hi!

I would like to share with you a recent analysis of the jazzy interlude from the first movement of Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major.

Besides the obvious timbral choices, the use of octatonic chords with split thirds (or augmented ninths!) are an interesting point of contact with Jazz idioms. However, the passage is still a prototypical Ravelian moment with a modal melody over chromatic harmony.

Do you remember any other passages like this where a concert piece in an “abstract” form (piano concerto, sonata, etc.) so blatantly evokes American popular music?