Large-scale tonal issues in Maurice Ravel’s Histoires Naturelles

Maurice Ravel's music is enigmatic in that it is deeply rooted in the tonal tradition, yet exhibits several features that can also be found in early atonal music. To analyze his music exclusively with the analytic tools of tonal theory or those of pitch class set theory can therefore be only partially fruitful. To invent an entirely new set of tools to confront his compositions, however, may isolate the music from its historical context and contribute little to our understanding of how it participated in the profound changes that the music of its time underwent. It is the aim of this paper to provide the reader with a set of tools that is not only satisfying from an analytic point of view, but also music-historically justifiable. Robert Mueller's concept of the "tonal pillar," which is slightly extended and modified in this study, when combined with quasi-Schenkerian graphing and traditional harmonic analysis, offers a viable means to deal with Ravel's early music, if not Impressionist music in general. The following five analyses of the five songs from Ravel's song cycle Histoires Naturelles demonstrate the effectiveness of such an approach in disclosing some of Ravel's compositional objectives.Arts, Faculty ofMusic, School ofGraduat