is supported by soft sonorities on the piano, written on three staves, and discreet backings from the other instruments. The artificial harmonics of the strings return briefly in alternation with a delicate chordal arpeggio in the piano to conclude the movement. Placet futile offers rhythm games and "dialogues" of more whimsical sonorities: the measure often changes, when Soupir remained immutably four-stroke. The piano, absent during the whole first quatrain of the poem, makes an entrance almost as "spectacular" as in the future Tzigane of 1924: a rush of arpeggios accompanying the evocation of frivolous pleasures and the "lukewarm games" of the poem. The flute offers a counter-singing to the last verses of the sonnet, which prefigures the "princess's air" of l'Enfant et les Sortilèges. Surgi… offers as first characteristic a change in instrumentation: the second flute takes the piccolo, and the second clarinet takes the bass clarinet. The small flute immediately flies away, on a tremolo broken from the violins, but cruelly dissonant. Overall, the accompaniment is very discreet, with a clear and icy equality of tone (harmonics of the quartet, octaves of the piano, etc.), somewhat frightening, in accord with the words "funeral" of the poem - until the end "exhaling" in the extreme bass of the voice. Vocally, the melody follows the text as closely as possible: neither vocals nor melisma, one note per syllable. The expansion linked to instrumental accompaniment, however, imposes a certain lyrical "breath". The performance of the song and its sharpness, or "intelligibility", are essential. Critic It is on this point that Charles Koechlin makes a reservation about Ravel's poems, in his : "Avoid also words that are rare and difficult to understand at first audition". The first tercet of Surgi de la croupe et du bond: Le pur vase d’aucun breuvage Que l’inexhaustible veuvage Agonise mais ne consent appears to be the most difficult, from this point of view. Koechlin, who was aware of this, adds in a note: The apostrophe "Princess! ", a descendant one by Debussy, is rising by Ravel, over the same interval of a sixth. In Surgi, the vocal line presents unaccompanied tritone. In this melody, the last composition, already announces the future Ravel, that of the Chansons madécasses... In Placet futile suddenly two equally remarkable "faces" of Ravel are set against each other. After the virtuoso, dazzling and vertiginous entry of the piano (figure 3 of the score),