M. RAVEL, AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF THE VOCAL SCORE FOR THE EARLY CANTATA "ALCYONE", [1902]

a composing manuscript, notated in short score in ink on systems of between four and seven staves, with autograph title ("Alcyone Scène lyrique") and section headings ("Prélude...Scène I^re...Scène II. Le Sommeil d'Alcyone...Scène III...Scène I. L'ombre de Céyx, Alcyone...Scène V. Alcyone, Sophrona. L'ombre de Céyx, visible seulement pour Alcyone"), the accompanimental part, variously for piano two hands or piano four hands, over an original, mostly erased, pencil layer, marked up for performance in blue crayon, the first piano part highlighted in the duet sections, comprising:

1. Prelude (4 pages): for piano four hands
2. Scene I (9 pages): Alcyone (soprano), Sophrona (alto), and piano
3. Scene II (6 pages): Alcyone's Dream: Ceyx (tenor) and piano four hands
4. Scene III (2 pages): Ceyx and piano
5. Scene IV (8 pages): The shade of Ceyx. Alcyone and piano
6. Scene V (9 pages): Sophrona, Alcyone, Ceyx and piano



38 single leaves, including title, written on one side only, plus blanks (35.2 x 26.8cm), 20- and 24-stave papers, no place or date [Paris, 1902], slight browning to edges, a few small tears

R. Nichols, Ravel (2011), pp.45-47; A. Orenstein, Ravel. Man and Musician, (1991), p.151; S. Zank, Maurice Ravel. A Guide to Research (2005), p.318; M. Marnat, Maurice Ravel (1986), p.116;

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing where appropriate.
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A REMARKABLE, AUTOGRAPH SCORE OF A COMPLETE WORK BY RAVEL. Ravel's cantata Alcyone, for three solo voices and orchestra, based on a text by Eugène and Edouard Adénis after Ovid's Metamorphoses, was Ravel's unsuccessful entry for the 1902 Prix de Rome. The three singers were accompanied at the competition by the present piano-duet version, played by Ravel and Léon Moreau, probably using this very manuscript. The autograph full score was available for consultation by members of the jury; that manuscript is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Alcyone was published only in the 1990s, but this manuscript was not used for the vocal score edition.

In his 1986 monograph on Ravel, Marcel Marnat judges Alcyone to be the best of Ravel’s cantatas written for the final rounds of the Prix de Rome competitions in 1901-1903: "[it] could easily have passed into the repertory, since it is elegant and unpretentious and avoids obvious clichés; all the more remarkable since it is infused throughout with touches of the ‘orient’" (as stipulated). Nevertheless, Ravel was not awarded the prize, which went to Aymé Kunc (1877-1958), who for thirty years was director of the conservatoire in his native Toulouse. The fact that the main melodic idea for Alcyone is based on a theme in Debussy's String Quartet "can hardly have done Ravel any favours with the jury, especially given Debussy's standing as a dangerous revolutionary" (Nichols).