Ravel - Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte ( Pavane for a Dead Princess) Eric Himy , piano

Ravel - Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte ( Pavane for a Dead Princess) Eric Himy , piano www.erichimy.com Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) is a well-known piece written for solo piano by the French composer Maurice Ravel in 1899 when he was studying composition at the Conservatoire de Paris under Gabriel Fauré. Ravel also published an orchestrated version of the Pavane in 1910 Ravel described the piece as "an evocation of a pavane that a little princess might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court".The pavane was a slow processional dance that enjoyed great popularity in the courts of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This antique miniature is not meant to pay tribute to any particular princess from history, but rather expresses a nostalgic enthusiasm for Spanish customs and sensibilities, which Ravel shared with many of his contemporaries (most notably Debussy and Albéniz) and which is evident in some of his other works such as the Rapsodie Espagnole and the Boléro. Ravel dedicated the Pavane to his patron, the Princesse de Polignac. He published it in 1900, but it attracted little attention until the Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes gave the first performance on April 5, 1902.