“À Voce Di Terra”, Éléonore Pancrazi unearths the Corsican melodies of Maurice Ravel

A promising lyricist who will take the title role of Carmen at the royal opera of Versailles in January, mezzo-soprano Éléonore Pancrazi knows her Ravel like the back of her hand. From the Basque composer she sang many of the melodies, Madecan songs, Hebrew and Greek melodies, the marvelous cycle Scheherazade in a reduction for piano (when will its orchestral version be released?) or even Spanish Time, astonishing “musical comedy” in one act.

When, during the Covid epidemic and while she is putting together a program on the lyrical voice and Corsica through screens, someone tells her about manuscripts preserved in Corte that the young Maurice Ravel dedicated to his native island , it’s obviously joy. “ This is his first orchestration and arrangement work, he is barely 20 years old. We don’t know about it before. We only have the manuscript to work with, it’s a bit magical and it provides great emotion. We later know that he will always be fascinated by the culture of others », confides the singer, who has sworn to return to it when she is given the opportunity to publish an album under her name.

This is done thanks to the Oktav label and the collective of musicians ActeSix, who excited us a few months ago with a splendid Place of one’s own, bucolic stroll through the British melodic heritage placed under the auspices of Virginia Woolf. There was indeed an attempt to record these melodies when the manuscripts were discovered in the 1990s, but too anecdotal and far from achieving the finishing work with which the singer rewards us.

Clever mix of instrumental colors

The history of these hidden scores begins at the end of the 19th century.^e century with Austin de Croze, a regionalist and ethnomusicologist passing through Corsica for his military service, decided to travel the island to collect orally the many songs and transcribe them in a voluminous work.

« Each chapter corresponds to an aspect of Corsican culture and a type of music: political with anthems, satirical and electoral songs, love, lullabies, etc. We learn a lot about Corsican culture. », attests Éléonore Pancrazi.

Coming to present the results of his research in Paris, Croze asked his young friend Maurice Ravel, fresh from the Conservatory, to harmonize and arrange a good dozen of them. “ By observing this cycle, we understand his desire to mix chamber music instruments with those of traditional music », Remarks the singer. There is indeed piano, organ, harp, harmonium, guitar and a string quartet, a clever mix of instrumental colors from which the great orchestrator will never part.

« We feel a lot of respect, subtlety and refinement, with a chamber musician side that we don’t expect.. It’s very simple but nothing is left to chance. It’s lace. » Enough to give a glimpse of the permanent imprint that popular music will leave on his future work. “ I like to think that it was this cycle that gave him this passion », she wants to believe. And us with it.

By Earth, Éléonore Pancrazi, ActeSix, Oktav Records.