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Tzigane is a rhapsodic composition by the France composer Maurice Ravel featuring a virtuosic violin part. The original instrumentation was for violin and piano (with optional luthéal attachment). The first performance took place in London on 26 April 1924 with the dedicatee, Jelly d'Arányi, on the violin and Henri Gil-Marchex at the piano. In his biographical sketch of 1928Dictated to Roland-Manuel, and quoted in Roland-Manuel. Maurice Ravel. Dennis Dobson Ltd, London, 1947, p91. Ravel termed it a rapsodie de concert, as "a virtuoso piece in the style of a Hungarian rhapsody". It consists of "a string of successive variations juxtaposed without development".Jankélévitch, Vladimir. Ravel (translated by Margaret Crosland, Evergreen Profile Book 3. Grove Press, New York & John Calder, London, 1959, p61.
Ravel Orchestration the piano part in July 1924, and also created a version of the piano score noted for luthéal accompaniment. The autograph manuscript for the orchestrated version is held by the Morgan Library & Museum.
The name of the piece is derived from the generic term for "Romani people" (in French language: gitan, tsigane or tzigane rather than the Hungarian cigány) although it does not use any authentic Gypsy melodies.
The composition is in one movement, with an approximate duration of ten minutes, scored for strings and harp, double woodwinds, two horns in F, one trumpet in C, celesta, triangle, timbre, and cymbal.Ravel. Tzigane – Rapsodie de Concert pour Violon et Orchestre. Durand & Cie, Paris, 1957. The opening is marked 'Lento, quasi cadenza' and is for solo violin, playing on the G string for the first 28 bars; Jankélévitch describes the preamble (Lassan) as "superior exercises – runs, staccato notes, trills and ". Then follow a succession of "gipsy improvisations – the Friska, then the Czardas", at the end of which "the rhapsody becomes impatient and runs feverishly through all kinds of successive Tonality without retaining any of them".
Rhythmical, structural, and melodic elements in common with Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies have been identified. Liszt's attempts to mimic the cimbalom may have inspired Ravel to create a version of the score that included the use of the luthéal, a new piano attachment (first patented in 1919) with several tone-colour registrations which could be engaged by pulling stops above the keyboard. One of these registrations had a cimbalom-like sound, which fitted well with the verbunkos style of the composition.Roger Cotte J. V. 2001. "Luthéal Piano-Luthéal". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers. The original score of Tzigane included instructions for these register-changes during execution. The luthéal, however, did not achieve permanence. By the end of the 20th century the first print of the accompaniment with luthéal was still available at the publishers, but by that time the attachment had long since disappeared from use.
Contemporaries Jourdan-Morhange, Joseph Szigeti, and Henri Sauguet all expressed doubts on the music's value, labelling it pastiche and finding "music has surrendered too much place to instrumental acrobatics". Tzigane did not rate a mention in Alexis Roland-Manuel's 1938 biography of Ravel.
Recent critique has been as unfavorable. While noting the work's enduring popularity with performers and record labels, Roger Nichols and Robert Orledge have both noted Tzigane is not one of Ravel's compositionally great works.
Nevertheless, the work is popular with performers and is frequently recorded.
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