Alborada del gracioso (The Jester'sAubade) is the fourth of the five movements ofMaurice Ravel's piano suiteMiroirs, written in 1905. Dedicated to fellowLes Apaches memberMichel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, it is about seven minutes long and, as part of the suite, has always been regularly played and recorded by pianists.Alborada wasorchestrated by Ravel fourteen years later for use as a ballet. In this form, as a standalone orchestral piece, it is often played in concert.

The Spanish title has no exact translation.Alborada, or dawn in English, has various musical meanings: a song for a wedding day;^[1] a folk dance;^[1] aGalician folk tune;^[2] and a type of rhythmically free music played on bagpipes and drum.^[3] But as usually construed for Ravel's piece it is an announcement of dawn, a sunrise song, an aubade.^[4][5]Gracioso has roots in thetroubadour andtrouvère traditions: he was a figure of Spanish comedy,^[1] the genial buffoon,^[6] the grotesque lover,^[7] an amusingly entertaining person,^[8] a servant who comments on the actions of his superiors.^[9] Accordingly the whole title is rendered variously asMorning Song of the Clown,^[10]Morning Song of the Buffoon^[11] orThe Jester's Aubade.^[12]

In the years 1904–05, as he was finishing hisString Quartet, Ravel composedMiroirs (Mirrors), a suite of five short piano pieces.^[13] He later orchestrated two of them: the orchestral version of "Une Barque sur l'océan" (A Barque on the Ocean) came out in 1906;^[14] more than a decade elapsed before Ravel orchestrated the other, the "Alborada del gracioso".^[14]

The orchestration came about at the invitation ofSergei Diaghilev, the impresario of theBallets Russes. He was well acquainted with Ravel, having commissioned from him the music forDaphnis et Chloé in 1909. Diaghilev visited Spain for the first time in 1916 and was so taken with the country that he commissioned several ballets on Spanish themes. The first appeared in the same year:Leonid Massine'sLas meninas, inspired byVelázquez's painting of thesame name. It was danced to a composite score that included "Alborada del gracioso" (in its piano version) along withGabriel Fauré'sPavane and pieces byLouis Aubert andEmmanuel Chabrier.^[15] Diaghilev commissioned Ravel to orchestrate the Alborada (and the Chabrier piece,the Menuet pompeux) for a production of the ballet, retitledLes jardins d'Aranjuez, at theAlhambra Theatre, London in 1919.^[16] Before the ballet opened in London the orchestralAlborada was premiered in Paris on 17 May 1919 by thePasdeloup Orchestra conducted byRhené-Baton.^[17]

The music consists of two sections of lively dance music, separated by a rhapsodic, extended song.^[18] The opening is markedassez vif (fairly quick), ♩ = 92.^[19] Like the piano original, the piece begins with imitations of guitar music. In the orchestral version they are produced by the first harp, played close to thesound board, along with precisely arrangedpizzicato violins and violas.^[20] The basic metre of the opening section is⁶
₈ but Ravel varies it with occasional bars of³
₈ and⁹
₈.^[1]

The music is mainly quiet for the first 28 bars as the themes are established. They are then brought together in what the commentator Eric Bromberger describes as "a great explosion of sound, subtly tinted by Ravel's use of castanets, tambourine, cymbals and harp".^[1] and then a fortissimo chord introduces the central episode, a plaintive³
₄ melody for solo bassoon – the clown's song – alternating with shimmering string sonorities.^[1][21] To represent the sounds of the extreme treble of the piano original, the accompaniment to the bassoon melody is scored for 24-part strings, some instruments bowed, others plucked, and deploying a range ofharmonics, multiplestops andsul tasto effects.^[20]

The music makes a gradual return to the original tempo; Ravel added four bars to the original score here, making use of woodwind tremolos.^[12] The piece builds to a conclusion and ends in what critics have variously described as "a blaze of orchestral color",^[21] "an exhilarating climax",^[22] and "a grand and glorious racket".^[7]

The piece is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, crotales, triangle, Basque drum, castanets, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, xylophone, two harps, and strings.

The first recording of the orchestralAlborada del gracioso was made by theBerlin State Opera Orchestra, conducted byOtto Klemperer in 1926.^[17] Since then there have been numerous versions on record. In a comparative survey of recordings forBBC Radio 3,Rob Cowan short-listed the following:^[23]

Recordings recommended by other critics include:

In 2015 the conductorFrançois-Xavier Roth and the orchestraLes Siècles, which specialises inhistorically informed performance, released a recording of theAlborada using original or reproduction instruments of the period.^[28]

• Baker, Richard (1979).Richard Baker's Music Guide. Newton Abbot: David and Charles.ISBN 978-0-71-537782-6.
• Chase, Gilbert (1942).The Music of Spain. London: Dent.OCLC 12178522.
• Lee, Douglas (2002).The Modern Repertory of the Symphony Orchestra. New York: Routledge.ISBN 978-0-41-593846-4.
• March, Ivan; Edward Greenfield; Robert Layton; Paul Czajkowski (2008).The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music. London: Penguin.ISBN 978-0-141-03336-5.
• Nichols, Roger (2011).Ravel. New Haven: Yale University Press.ISBN 978-0-30-010882-8.
• Orenstein, Arbie (1991) [1975].Ravel: Man and Musician. Mineola, US: Dover.ISBN 978-0-486-26633-6.
• Ravel, Maurice (1920).Alborada del gracioso:orchestral score(PDF). Paris: E. Demets.OCLC 993665100.
• Russ, Michael (2000). "Ravel and the orchestra". In Deborah Mawer (ed.).Cambridge Companion to Ravel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-0-521-64026-8.
• Svejda, Jim (1995).The Record Shelf Guide to Classical CDs. Rocklin: Prima.OCLC 103681656.

• Compositions for symphony orchestra
• 1904 compositions
• 1919 compositions
• Compositions by Maurice Ravel

• Webarchive template wayback links
• Pages containing links to subscription-only content
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use British English from March 2021
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Use dmy dates from March 2021