«Kaddisch» par Ravel dans les miroirs hermeneutiques. Un miroir sonore infini de l’hebraïque «alas»

Abstract

"We are proposing to situate Maurice Ravel in a refined poetic aesthetic. Our desire is to offer an original philosophical and musicological perspective on Kaddisch, because, personally, this composition determines us to reflect on what is “beyond” Being. We note that there is a particular Hebraic stylistic continuity at the time, and in this sense we also remember Joseph Achron, on the distinguished Hebrew Melody, op. 33. More than that, Yehudi Menuhin devoted himself playing both the composition of Achron and this special composition by Maurice Ravel on the violin. Maurice Ravel composed a part for the liturgical ceremony entitled Kaddish, and critics claim that he did not introduce this song as a novelty, because the composition already existed in the Hebrew tradition. However, behind that, we try to defend Ravel by observing what are the aesthetic-compositional novelties introduced in this beautiful song. Being a mystical song of a man who mourns death but, at the same time, weeps on infinite love, Kaddisch still let us to find various interpretations, whether it is a liturgical text or sheet music. Advancing with the observations along this paper, in the final part of the paper, we made a comparison between Maurice Ravel and Leonard Bernstein’s perspective on Kaddisch. Keywords: “Kaddisch (Kaddish)”; Maurice Ravel; Leonard Bernstein; Alexander Veprik; Yehudi Menuhin; violin’s aesthetic; metaphysical sadness; sacredness; mournfulness; mourning; the Hebrew-ʻalasʼ; the Portuguese ʻalémʼ. "