| Tout est lumière | |
|---|---|
| Choral music byMaurice Ravel | |
 The composer in 1907 | |
| Catalogue | M. 28 |
| Text | poem from Victor Hugo'sLes Feuilles d'automne |
| Language | French |
| Composed | 1901 (1901) |
| Scoring |
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Tout est lumière (All is light),M. 28, is a piece of choral music byMaurice Ravel. He wrote it as a student in 1901 for thePrix de Rome competition, setting a poem byVictor Hugo forsoprano, mixed choir and orchestra.
Ravel composedTout est lumière in 1901 while studying at theConservatoire de Paris,[1][2][3] where his teachers wereCharles-René [fr],Pessard andFauré.[1] It was written as an entry to thePrix de Rome competition.[1] The prize, established in 1803 and given annually, came with a scholarship stay at theVilla Medici in Rome for two to three years and afterwards further studies in Germany. In the first round, the students had to present a fugue and a chorus; those selected by the jury had to compose a cantata about a given text for the second round.[1]
Ravel applied for the prize five times, first in 1900. In 1901, he submittedTout est lumière in the first round, which earned him a spot in the second round.[1][2][3] Ravel also took part in the competition in 1902, 1903 and 1905, but never achieved the first prize.[1][2][4]
ForTout est lumière, Ravel set a text from Hugo's poem collectionLes Feuilles d'automne.[2][5] He scored the work forsoprano, mixed choir and orchestra.[2][6] Like his other entries to the competition, the piece remained unpublished.[1]
The text by Hugo is in fourstanzas, taken from the poem "Spectacle rassurant" and beginning "Tout est lumière! Tout est joie!".[5] It has been described as "a brightly optimistic poem about the perfection of nature".[1]
Ravel scored the composition forsoprano, mixed choir and an orchestra of twoflutes, twooboes, twoclarinets, twobassoons, twohorns,timpani andstrings. The music has been described as simple inharmony, with "bright, gently swaying" choral singing and "delicate phrases" of the solost.[2] The soprano performs the third stanza.[5] After areprise, the music ends softly with acoda. Although the work is rather conventional, it shows the influence of Debussy's musical language.[2]Roger Nichols, Ravel's biographer, described the orchestration as efficient but without much contrast; he noticed a reminiscence of Wagner'sGötterdämmerung in the last cadence.[7]
Tout est lumière was recorded in 1995 in a collection of music written for the Prix de Rome byAndré Caplet, Debussy and Ravel, performed by the choir and orchestra of theSorbonne, conducted byJacques Grimbert.[8] It was recorded in a collection of cantatas that Ravel composed for the Prix de Rome in 2022, performed by the Choir andOrchestre national des Pays de la Loire conducted by Pascal Rophésous.[4]
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| Orchestral | |
| Concertante | |
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| Solo piano | |
| Vocal | |
| Related | |
