Fantastic Dances: Rachmaninoff & Ravel

Sergei Rachmaninoff always wanted to compose a ballet but never had the opportunity. Instead, later in life, he wrote a set of three colourful symphonic dances. Ravel originally composed La valse as a ballet, but it was considered undanceable. He published it anyway with a few descriptive phrases like “glimpses of waltzing couples,” “an immense hall,” “progressively brighter,” until finally “chandelier bursts forth.” Avner Dorman describes his c...