The piece
Ravel wrote the Pavane for a Dead Princess in 1899, while still a student at the Paris Conservatoire, and dedicated it to the Princesse Edmond de Polignac; Demets published it in 1900. The title calls up a slow dance of the Spanish court, not a real princess. The version played here is the original for piano, checked note by note against that edition. The theme returns three times, the last time an octave higher, above arpeggios in sixteenth notes.
Under the melody, the right hand often plays light, detached eighth notes: keep the tune on top and well joined. In bars 28 to 31 the left hand rolls wide chords from the bottom up, pedal down. The runs marked “rapide” (bars 34 and 66) start in the left hand and end on a note the right hand holds: link the two hands without a gap, then let it ring.
