Arthur Benjamin - Le Tombeau de Ravel

Hi everyone!

This week's excerpts are from Arthur Benjamin's Le Tombeau de Ravel. I love the graceful quirkiness of this piece, which suits the clarinet so well, but is is a very challenging piece. I'm trying something different with the presentation this time - no video but lots of information and videos - do you like this better? 

Introduction

If you don't already know Ravel's piece, Le Tombeau de Couperin, that is, I would say, required listening before you dive into this piece as of course Benjamin is referencing it, and you can really hear that when you play the clarinet part. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NA4j3VhGY4&list=RD7NA4j3VhGY4&start_radio=1

Arthur Benjamin (1893–1960) was an Australian-born composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher who spent much of his career in Britain. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and served in the First World War before establishing himself as a versatile musician. Benjamin’s music blends craftsmanship with accessibility, often marked by rhythmic vitality and a flair for orchestral color.

Arthur Benjamin had a real affinity for the clarinet, writing several significant works that showcase both its lyricism and agility. His Le Tombeau de Ravel (1949), for clarinet and piano, is full of elegance and wit, while his Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (1942) remains a favorite among clarinetists for its blend of warmth, rhythmic sparkle, and technical brilliance. He also featured the clarinet prominently in chamber works and orchestral textures, often giving it lyrical, songlike lines balanced with playful virtuosity.

First excerpt

In fact, for the first excerpt, I am giving you quite a long one from near the beginning which I think is one of the most Ravel-like sections - don't feel you need to learn the whole thing, I'm giving you this whole page because a) I had a little trouble deciding, the piece is long and full of so many great moments! and b) I wanted you to have one of the melodies, but I also thought a great challenge would be this passage that appears just before the Lento after [6] - really great technical challenge for everyone, especially those working on their altissimo. 

https://youtu.be/K1UqyZwIp1U?si=YuyoIJWJLGxq13N5&t=44

• If you're working on the challenging sixteenth note passage, you might try my trusty method: set a timer for 5 minutes, and do as many repetitions of each bar as you can, preferably as close to your goal speed as possible (both of the artists in the two videos I shared play this piece very fast, but you don't need to be that fast!). After those 5 minute are up, close your eyes and sit for 5 minutes, let your brain absorb the time you've spent learning. Practicing at speed and making mistakes helps your brain learn, but it can be useful after this to go back and try again slowly. This is a method I shared in a recent livestream, and is backed up by science (I shared as well the podcast that I learned it from), and it works very well for me. Do this every day and over the course of a week you'll see real improvements. 

Second excerpt

The second excerpt, a very challenging moment for the tongue and register crossing, appears at the start of the Allegretto, you can hear it from the start of that section below:

I would recommend a few things:

• Make sure the tongue is warmed up already with something a bit easier - whether that's scales or one of the Kell studies, or your favorite tonguing exercise.
• Air is as ever the key factor in successful tonguing - it is all too easy to get in the habit of stopping the air when you use the tongue, but the air should always be continuous, and a passage like this with a lot of register crossing is going to be particularly challenging for that!
• I also would practice this passage in 'air sound' before attempting the tonguing, making sure I have the notes really well under my fingers first