Ravel Edition

When asked by maestro Ludovic Morlot and RAVEL EDITION to consider orchestrating Ravel's early work for 2 pianos, Sites Auriculaires (1895/1897), naturally I agreed. Having a deep appreciation of the composer's logical and technical approach to his deeply sensuous, colouristic art I relished the challenge.

I immediately began with Entre cloches (the second of the two movements) and was excited by the implications of complexes of bells that Ravel conjures, and which I have sought to amplify in terms of orchestral writing. As for the initial Habanera, scored by Ravel in his Rapsodie espagnole (1908), this movement provided many challenges, primarily because an orchestration by the composer was already extant, but also due to the myriad differences between the original and later-orchestrated version. My approach here was to create a type of gentle oppositional or negative orchestration, one where I tried to oppose Ravel's original colour choices, yet still retain the composer's instrumental palette. 

Through working with Ravel’s music my own admiration for it, and the French tradition from which Ravel is both continuation and initiator, has only deepened, and I have been reminded just how large a shadow his work still casts.

Kenneth Hesketh - Janvier 2024 (Any reproduction, in part or in whole, is prohibited without prior authorisation from RAVEL EDITION.)

Kenneth Hesketh has been described as “one of the UK's most vibrant voices, having a brand of modernism that reveals true love for sound itself” (International Piano). A fascination with entropy, mutation and existentialism, coexisting with a notable interest in formal design based on the influence of ‘pathways’ (labyrinths and mazes) informs his work. He has received numerous national and international commissions working with an array of important conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Oliver Knussen, Vasilly Sinaisky, Vasily Petrenko, Susanna Malkki, Christoph-Mathias Mueller, John Wilson, Martyn Brabbins, Ludovic Morlot, Jac van Steen and Pascal Rophé.

As an orchestrator, Hesketh’s treatments of French music, including Debussy, Boulanger, Ravel, and Dutilleux have been critically acclaimed, with his versions of Dutilleux’s Au gré des ondes, recorded by the Britten Sinfonia, and pieces de concours for flute, oboe and bassoon, performed by the Sinfonia of London being cited in a BBC Music Magazine award in 2022. His orchestrations of the Fugue and Toccata from Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin have been recorded by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under Sakari Oramo, and the l'Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, conducted by Ludovic Morlot.