Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier’s second concert features four great works originally for orchestra. The genesis of Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole was a Habanera, for two pianos, which Ravel wrote in 1895. It was not published as a separate piece, and in 1907 he composed three companion pieces. A two-piano version was completed by October of that year, and the suite was fully orchestrated the following February. Ravel also made his own a two-piano arrangement of La valse, although in this case, the orchestral composition came first.