Jeux d'eau (Ravel)


Jeux d’eau is a piece for solo piano by Maurice Ravel. The title is often translated as "Fountains", "Playing Water" or literally "Water Games". At the time of writing Jeux d'eau, Ravel was a student of Gabriel Fauré, to whom the piece is dedicated. Pianist Ricardo Viñes was the first to publicly perform the work in 1902, although it had been privately performed for Les Apaches previously.
The piece was inspired by Franz Liszt's piece Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este, and Ravel explained its origins in this way:
Written on the manuscript by Ravel, and often included on published editions, is the text "Dieu fluvial riant de l'eau qui le chatouille..." a quote from Henri de Régnier's Cité des eaux, which in English editions is sometimes translated to "River god laughing as the water tickles him...". The tonality of the piece is E major.
The piece uses non-standard keys included on larger Bösendorfer models, often written into scores using a substituted low A near measure 57, which should be a half-step lower at G.
The work was first published by Eugène Demets.