Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passa ...

along with his elder contemporary

Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...

, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the

Paris Conservatoire The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the conservatoire, Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of

modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...

neoclassicism Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism ...

and, in his later works,

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, ''

Boléro ''Boléro'' is a 1928 work for large orchestra by French composer Maurice Ravel. At least one observer has called it Ravel's most famous composition. It was also one of his last completed works before illness forced him into retirement. Co ...

'' (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. Renowned for his abilities in

orchestration Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble, such as a concert band) or of adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. Also called "instrumentation", orch ...

, Ravel made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' piano music, of which his 1922 version of

Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...

's ''

Pictures at an Exhibition ''Pictures at an Exhibition'', french: Tableaux d'une exposition, link=no is a suite of ten piano pieces, plus a recurring, varied Promenade theme, composed by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. The piece is Mussorgsky's most famous pia ...

'' is the best known. A slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies or church music. Many of his works exist in two versions: first, a piano score and later an orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as ''

Gaspard de la nuit ''Gaspard de la nuit'' (subtitled ''Trois poèmes pour piano d'après Aloysius Bertrand''), M. 55 is a suite of piano pieces by Maurice Ravel, written in 1908. It has three movements, each based on a poem or ''fantaisie'' from the collection '' ...

'' (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as '' Daphnis et Chloé'' (1912) require skilful balance in performance. Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public. From the 1920s, despite limited technique as a pianist or conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works; others were made under his supervision.

Life and career

Early years

Ravel was born in the

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

town of

Ciboure Ciboure (; ,ZIBURU

Biarritz Biarritz ( , , , ; Basque also ; oc, Biàrritz ) is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located from the border with Spa ...

, from the Spanish border. His father,

Pierre-Joseph Ravel Pierre-Joseph Ravel (1832–1908) was a Swiss civil engineer and inventor, father of the composer Maurice Ravel. He was a pioneer of the automobile industry. He invented and drove the steam-powered automobile in the late 1860s, developed an acetyl ...

, was an educated and successful engineer, inventor and manufacturer, born in

Versoix Versoix () is a municipality in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, which sits on the north-west side of Lake Geneva, north-east of the city of Geneva. Geography Versoix has an area, , of . Of this area, or 29.1% is used for agricultural purpo ...

near the Franco-Swiss border. His mother, Marie, ''née'' Delouart, was

but had grown up in Madrid. In 19th-century terms, Joseph had married beneath his status – Marie was illegitimate and barely literate – but the marriage was a happy one. Some of Joseph's inventions were successful, including an early

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...

and a notorious circus machine, the "Whirlwind of Death", an automotive

loop-the-loop The generic roller coaster vertical loop, where a section of track causes the riders to complete a 360 degree turn, is the most basic of roller coaster inversions. At the top of the loop, riders are completely inverted. History The vertical l ...

that was a major attraction until a fatal accident at

Barnum and Bailey's Circus The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (also known as the Ringling Bros. Circus, Ringling Bros., the Barnum & Bailey Circus, Barnum & Bailey, or simply Ringling) is an American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Ear ...

in 1903. Both Ravel's parents were

Roman Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

; Marie was also something of a

free-thinker Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods ...

, a trait inherited by her elder son. He was baptised in the Ciboure parish church six days after he was born. The family moved to Paris three months later, and there a younger son, Édouard, was born. (He was close to his father, whom he eventually followed into the engineering profession.) Maurice was particularly devoted to their mother; her Basque-Spanish heritage was a strong influence on his life and music. Among his earliest memories were folk songs she sang to him.Orenstein (1991), p. 8 The household was not rich, but the family was comfortable, and the two boys had happy childhoods. Ravel senior delighted in taking his sons to factories to see the latest mechanical devices, but he also had a keen interest in music and culture in general. In later life, Ravel recalled, "Throughout my childhood I was sensitive to music. My father, much better educated in this art than most amateurs are, knew how to develop my taste and to stimulate my enthusiasm at an early age." There is no record that Ravel received any formal general schooling in his early years; his biographer Roger Nichols suggests that the boy may have been chiefly educated by his father. When he was seven, Ravel started piano lessons with

Henri Ghys Esprit Charles Henri Ghys (17 March 1839 – 24 April 1908) was a French pianist, organist, composer and arranger of Belgian parentage, who is primarily known today as the first piano teacher of Maurice Ravel. Life and music Henri (sometimes: Hen ...

, a friend of

Emmanuel Chabrier Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier (; 18 January 184113 September 1894) was a French Romantic composer and pianist. His bourgeois family did not approve of a musical career for him, and he studied law in Paris and then worked as a civil servant until the ...

; five years later, in 1887, he began studying

harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howeve ...

counterpoint In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tra ...

and composition with Charles-René, a pupil of

Léo Delibes Clément Philibert Léo Delibes (; 21 February 1836 – 16 January 1891) was a French Romantic composer, best known for his ballets and operas. His works include the ballets ''Coppélia'' (1870) and '' Sylvia'' (1876) and the opera ''Lakm� ...

.Nichols (2011), p. 9 Without being anything of a child prodigy, he was a highly musical boy. Charles-René found that Ravel's conception of music was natural to him "and not, as in the case of so many others, the result of effort". Ravel's earliest known compositions date from this period: variations on a chorale by

Schumann Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...

, variations on a theme by Grieg and a single movement of a piano sonata.Kelly, Barbara L
"Ravel, Maurice"
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, retrieved 26 February 2015 They survive only in fragmentary form. In 1888 Ravel met the young pianist

Ricardo Viñes Ricardo Viñes y Roda (, ca, Ricard Viñes i Roda, ; 5 February 1875 – 29 April 1943) was a Spanish pianist. He gave the premieres of works by Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Falla and Albéniz. He was the piano teacher of the composer Francis Pou ...

, who became not only a lifelong friend, but also one of the foremost interpreters of his works, and an important link between Ravel and Spanish music. The two shared an appreciation of

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

, Russian music, and the writings of

Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widel ...

Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited fro ...

and Mallarmé.Orenstein (1991), p. 16 At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, Ravel was much struck by the new Russian works conducted by

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov . At the time, his name was spelled Николай Андреевичъ Римскій-Корсаковъ. la, Nicolaus Andreae filius Rimskij-Korsakov. The composer romanized his name as ''Nicolas Rimsk ...

. This music had a lasting effect on both Ravel and his older contemporary

, as did the exotic sound of the Javanese

gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

, also heard during the Exposition.

Émile Decombes Émile Decombes (9 August 18295 May 1912) (also seen as Descombes) was a French pianist and teacher. Decombes was born in Nîmes. Little is known about his life other than that he was one of the last pupils of Frédéric Chopin in Paris. He taught ...

took over as Ravel's piano teacher in 1889; in the same year Ravel gave his earliest public performance. Lesure and Nectoux, p. 9 Aged fourteen, he took part in a concert at the

Salle Érard Salle Érard The salle Érard is a music venue located in Paris, 13 rue du Mail in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris. It is part of the hôtel particulier which belonged, from the 18th century, to the family of piano, harp and harpsichord manufa ...

along with other pupils of Decombes, including

Reynaldo Hahn Reynaldo Hahn (; 9 August 1874 – 28 January 1947) was a Venezuelan-born French composer, conductor, music critic, and singer. He is best known for his songs – ''mélodies'' – of which he wrote more than 100. Hahn was born in Caracas b ...

and

Alfred Cortot Alfred Denis Cortot (; 26 September 187715 June 1962) was a French pianist, conductor, and teacher who was one of the most renowned classical musicians of the 20th century. A pianist of massive repertory, he was especially valued for his poetic ...

Paris Conservatoire

With the encouragement of his parents, Ravel applied for entry to France's most important musical college, the

Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

. In November 1889, playing music by Chopin, he passed the examination for admission to the preparatory piano class run by Eugène Anthiome. Ravel won the first prize in the Conservatoire's piano competition in 1891, but otherwise he did not stand out as a student.Orenstein (1995), p. 92 Nevertheless, these years were a time of considerable advance in his development as a composer. The musicologist

Arbie Orenstein Arbie Orenstein (born 1937) is an American musicologist, author, academic and pianist, known as a scholar of the life and works of the composer Maurice Ravel and, more generally, as an expert on Jewish music. Life and career Orenstein was born in ...

writes that for Ravel the 1890s were a period "of immense growth... from adolescence to maturity".Orenstein (1991), p. 14 Classe Bériot 1895

In 1891 Ravel progressed to the classes of

Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot (12 February 183322 October 1914) was a French pianist, teacher and composer. He was born in Paris in 1833, the son of the violinist Charles Auguste de Bériot and his then common-law wife, the famed soprano Maria Mali ...

, for piano, and Émile Pessard, for harmony. He made solid, unspectacular progress, with particular encouragement from Bériot but, in the words of the musicologist

Barbara L. Kelly Barbara Lucy Kelly (born 2 June 1966) is a musicologist specialising in 19th- and early 20th-century French music, an area in which she is widely regarded as a leading authority. She has dual UK and Irish citizenship. A professor and director of ...

, he "was only teachable on his own terms". His later teacher

Gabriel Fauré Gabriel Urbain Fauré (; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers ...

understood this, but it was not generally acceptable to the conservative faculty of the Conservatoire of the 1890s.Kelly (2000), p. 7 Ravel was expelled in 1895, having won no more prizes. His earliest works to survive in full are from these student days: ''Sérénade grotesque'', for piano, and "Ballade de la Reine morte d'aimer", a ''

mélodie A ''mélodie'' () is a form of French art song, arising in the mid-19th century. It is comparable to the German ''Lied''. A ''chanson'', by contrast, is a folk or popular French song. The literal meaning of the word in the French language is "melod ...

'' setting a poem by Roland de Marès (both 1893). Ravel was never so assiduous a student of the piano as his colleagues such as Viñes and Cortot were. It was plain that as a pianist he would never match them, and his overriding ambition was to be a composer. From this point he concentrated on composition. His works from the period include the songs "Un grand sommeil noir" and "D'Anne jouant de l'espinette" to words by

Paul Verlaine Paul-Marie Verlaine (; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the '' fin de siècle'' in international and ...

and

Clément Marot Clément Marot (23 November 1496 – 12 September 1544) was a French Renaissance poet. Biography Youth Marot was born at Cahors, the capital of the province of Quercy, some time during the winter of 1496–1497. His father, Jean Marot (c.& ...

, and the piano pieces '' Menuet antique'' and ''Habanera'' (for four hands), the latter eventually incorporated into the '' Rapsodie espagnole''. At around this time, Joseph Ravel introduced his son to

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an und ...

, who was earning a living as a café pianist. Ravel was one of the first musicians – Debussy was another – who recognised Satie's originality and talent. Satie's constant experiments in musical form were an inspiration to Ravel, who counted them "of inestimable value". Fauré-by-Eugéne-Pirou

In 1897 Ravel was readmitted to the Conservatoire, studying composition with Fauré, and taking private lessons in counterpoint with

André Gedalge André Gedalge (27 December 1856 – 5 February 1926) was a French composer and teacher. Biography André Gedalge was born at 75 rue des Saints-Pères in Paris where he first worked as a bookseller and editor, specialising in ''livres de prix' ...

. Both these teachers, particularly Fauré, regarded him highly and were key influences on his development as a composer. As Ravel's course progressed, Fauré reported "a distinct gain in maturity... engaging wealth of imagination". Ravel's standing at the Conservatoire was nevertheless undermined by the hostility of the Director,

Théodore Dubois Clément François Théodore Dubois (24 August 1837 – 11 June 1924) was a French Romantic composer, organist, and music teacher. After study at the Paris Conservatoire, Dubois won France's premier musical prize, the Prix de Rome in 1861. He bec ...

, who deplored the young man's musically and politically progressive outlook. Consequently, according to a fellow student,

Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi (2 October 1877 – 1 February 1944) was a French-born music critic and musicologist of Greek descent who was an English citizen and resident from 1914 onwards. He often promoted Russian composers, particularly Modes ...

, he was "a marked man, against whom all weapons were good". He wrote some substantial works while studying with Fauré, including the overture '' Shéhérazade'' and a

violin sonata A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, often accompanied by a keyboard instrument and in earlier periods with a bass instrument doubling the keyboard bass line. The violin sonata developed from a simple baroque form with no fixed fo ...

, but he won no prizes, and therefore was expelled again in 1900. As a former student he was allowed to attend Fauré's classes as a non-participating "auditeur" until finally abandoning the Conservatoire in 1903. In May 1897 Ravel conducted the first performance of the ''Shéhérazade'' overture, which had a mixed reception, with boos mingling with applause from the audience, and unflattering reviews from the critics. One described the piece as "a jolting debut: a clumsy plagiarism of the Russian School" and called Ravel a "mediocrely gifted debutant... who will perhaps become something if not someone in about ten years, if he works hard". Another critic,

Pierre Lalo Pierre Lalo (6 September 1866– 9 June 1943) was a French music critic and translator. He was the son of the composer Edouard Lalo. His reviews for the Parisian paper ''Le Temps'' combined conservatism and wit; among his principal targets was the ...

, thought that Ravel showed talent, but was too indebted to Debussy and should instead emulate

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

. Over the succeeding decades Lalo became Ravel's most implacable critic.Nichols (2011), p. 30 In 1899 Ravel composed his first piece to become widely known, though it made little impact initially: '' Pavane pour une infante défunte'' ("

Pavane The ''pavane'' ( ; it, pavana, ''padovana''; german: Paduana) is a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century (Renaissance). The pavane, the earliest-known music for which was published in Venice by Ottaviano Petrucci, ...

for a dead princess"). Langham Smith, Richard
"Maurice Ravel – Biography"
, BBC, retrieved 4 March 2014 It was originally a solo piano work, commissioned by the Princesse de Polignac. From the start of his career, Ravel appeared calmly indifferent to blame or praise. Those who knew him well believed that this was no pose but wholly genuine. The only opinion of his music that he truly valued was his own, perfectionist and severely self-critical. At twenty years of age he was, in the words of the biographer Burnett James, "self-possessed, a little aloof, intellectually biased, given to mild banter".James, p. 22 He dressed like a

dandy A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance. A dandy could be a self-made man who strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle des ...

and was meticulous about his appearance and demeanour. Orenstein comments that, short in stature, light in frame and bony in features, Ravel had the "appearance of a well-dressed jockey", whose large head seemed suitably matched to his formidable intellect. During the late 1890s and into the early years of the next century, Ravel was bearded in the fashion of the day; from his mid-thirties he was clean-shaven.

Les Apaches and Debussy

Around 1900 Ravel and a number of innovative young artists, poets, critics and musicians joined together in an informal group; they came to be known as Les Apaches ("The Hooligans"), a name coined by Viñes to represent their status as "artistic outcasts". They met regularly until the beginning of the First World War, and members stimulated one another with intellectual argument and performances of their works. The membership of the group was fluid, and at various times included

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...

and

Manuel de Falla Manuel de Falla y Matheu (, 23 November 187614 November 1946) was an Andalusian Spanish composer and pianist. Along with Isaac Albéniz, Francisco Tárrega, and Enrique Granados, he was one of Spain's most important musicians of the first ...

as well as their French friends. Among the enthusiasms of the Apaches was the music of Debussy. Ravel, twelve years his junior, had known Debussy slightly since the 1890s, and their friendship, though never close, continued for more than ten years.Nichols (1987), p. 101 In 1902

André Messager André Charles Prosper Messager (; 30 December 1853 – 24 February 1929) was a French composer, organist, pianist and conductor. His compositions include eight ballets and thirty opéra comique, opéras comiques, opérettes and other stage wo ...

conducted the premiere of Debussy's opera'' Pelléas et Mélisande'' at the

Opéra-Comique The Opéra-Comique is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief rival, the Comédie-Italienne ...

. It divided musical opinion. Dubois unavailingly forbade Conservatoire students to attend, and the conductor's friend and former teacher

Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...

was prominent among those who detested the piece. The Apaches were loud in their support. The first run of the opera consisted of fourteen performances: Ravel attended all of them. Debussy-Nadar-1905

Debussy was widely held to be an

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...

composer – a label he intensely disliked. Many music lovers began to apply the same term to Ravel, and the works of the two composers were frequently taken as part of a single genre. Ravel thought that Debussy was indeed an Impressionist but that he himself was not.Kelly (2000), p. 16 Orenstein comments that Debussy was more spontaneous and casual in his composing while Ravel was more attentive to form and craftsmanship.Orenstein (1991), p. 127 Ravel wrote that Debussy's "genius was obviously one of great individuality, creating its own laws, constantly in evolution, expressing itself freely, yet always faithful to French tradition. For Debussy, the musician and the man, I have had profound admiration, but by nature I am different from Debussy... I think I have always personally followed a direction opposed to that of is symbolism." During the first years of the new century Ravel's new works included the piano piece '' Jeux d'eau'' (1901), the

String Quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinist ...

and the orchestral song cycle ''Shéhérazade'' (both 1903). Commentators have noted some Debussian touches in some parts of these works. Nichols calls the quartet "at once homage to and exorcism of Debussy's influence". The two composers ceased to be on friendly terms in the middle of the first decade of the 1900s, for musical and possibly personal reasons. Their admirers began to form factions, with adherents of one composer denigrating the other. Disputes arose about the chronology of the composers' works and who influenced whom. Prominent in the anti-Ravel camp was Lalo, who wrote, "Where M. Debussy is all sensitivity, M. Ravel is all insensitivity, borrowing without hesitation not only technique but the sensitivity of other people." The public tension led to personal estrangement.James, p. 46 Ravel said, "It's probably better for us, after all, to be on frigid terms for illogical reasons." Nichols suggests an additional reason for the rift. In 1904 Debussy left his wife and went to live with the singer

Emma Bardac Emma Bardac (née Moyse; 10 July 1862 – 20 August 1934) was a French singer and the mutual love interest of both Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy. Of Jewish descent, Emma married, aged 17, Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac, by whom she had two ...

. Ravel, together with his close friend and confidante Misia Edwards and the opera star

Lucienne Bréval Lucienne Bréval (4 November 1869 – 15 August 1935) was a Swiss dramatic soprano who had a major international opera career from 1892 to 1918. Although she appeared throughout Europe and in the United States, Bréval spent most of her career pe ...

, contributed to a modest regular income for the deserted Lilly Debussy, a fact that Nichols suggests may have rankled with her husband.

Scandal and success

During the first years of the new century Ravel made five attempts to win France's most prestigious prize for young composers, the

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

, past winners of which included Berlioz,

Gounod Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...

Bizet Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', which has become on ...

, Massenet and Debussy. In 1900 Ravel was eliminated in the first round; in 1901 he won the second prize for the competition. In 1902 and 1903 he won nothing: according to the musicologist Paul Landormy, the judges suspected Ravel of making fun of them by submitting cantatas so academic as to seem like parodies.Landormy, p. 431 In 1905 Ravel, by now thirty, competed for the last time, inadvertently causing a ''furore''. He was eliminated in the first round, which even critics unsympathetic to his music, including Lalo, denounced as unjustifiable. The press's indignation grew when it emerged that the senior professor at the Conservatoire,

Charles Lenepveu Charles-Ferdinand Lenepveu (4 October 1840 – 16 August 1910), was a French composer and teacher. Destined for a career as a lawyer, he defied his family and followed a musical career. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, and won France's t ...

, was on the jury, and only his students were selected for the final round; his insistence that this was pure coincidence was not well received. ''L'affaire Ravel'' became a national scandal, leading to the early retirement of Dubois and his replacement by Fauré, appointed by the government to carry out a radical reorganisation of the Conservatoire. Among those taking a close interest in the controversy was Alfred Edwards, owner and editor of '' Le Matin'', for which Lalo wrote. Edwards was married to Ravel's friend Misia; the couple took Ravel on a seven-week Rhine cruise on their yacht in June and July 1905, the first time he had travelled abroad. By the latter part of the 1900s Ravel had established a pattern of writing works for piano and subsequently arranging them for full orchestra. He was in general a slow and painstaking worker, and reworking his earlier piano compositions enabled him to increase the number of pieces published and performed.Sackville-West and Shawe-Taylor, p. 607 There appears to have been no mercenary motive for this; Ravel was known for his indifference to financial matters.Nichols (1987), p. 32 The pieces that began as piano compositions and were then given orchestral dress were ''Pavane pour une infante défunte'' (orchestrated 1910), '' Une barque sur l'océan'' (1906, from the 1905 piano suite ''

Miroirs upRavel in 1907 ''Miroirs'' (French for "Mirrors") is a five-movement suite for solo piano written by French composer Maurice Ravel between 1904 and 1905."Miroirs". Maurice Ravel Frontispice. First performed by Ricardo Viñes in 1906, ''Miroirs ...

''), the Habanera section of ''Rapsodie espagnole'' (1907–08), '' Ma mère l'Oye'' (1908–10, orchestrated 1911), ''

Valses nobles et sentimentales The ''Valses nobles et sentimentales'' is a suite of waltzes composed by Maurice Ravel. The piano version was published in 1911, and an orchestral version was published in 1912. The title was chosen in homage to Franz Schubert, who had released ...

'' (1911, orchestrated 1912), ''

Alborada del gracioso ''Alborada del gracioso'' ("The Jester's Aubade", or other translations: see below) is a short orchestral piece by Maurice Ravel first performed in 1919. It is an orchestrated version of one of the five movements of his piano suite ''Miroirs'', ...

'' (from ''Miroirs'', orchestrated 1918) and '' Le tombeau de Couperin'' (1914–17, orchestrated 1919). Ravel was not by inclination a teacher, but he gave lessons to a few young musicians he felt could benefit from them. Manuel Rosenthal was one, and records that Ravel was a very demanding teacher when he thought his pupil had talent. Like his own teacher, Fauré, he was concerned that his pupils should find their own individual voices and not be excessively influenced by established masters. He warned Rosenthal that it was impossible to learn from studying Debussy's music: "Only Debussy could have written it and made it sound like only Debussy can sound." When

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...

asked him for lessons in the 1920s, Ravel, after serious consideration, refused, on the grounds that they "would probably cause him to write bad Ravel and lose his great gift of melody and spontaneity". The best-known composer who studied with Ravel was probably

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

, who was his pupil for three months in 1907–08. Vaughan Williams recalled that Ravel helped him escape from "the heavy contrapuntal Teutonic manner... ''Complexe mais pas compliqué'' was his motto." Vaughan Williams's recollections throw some light on Ravel's private life, about which the latter's reserved and secretive personality has led to much speculation. Vaughan Williams, Rosenthal and Marguerite Long have all recorded that Ravel frequented brothels; Long attributed this to his self-consciousness about his diminutive stature, and consequent lack of confidence with women. By other accounts, none of them first-hand, Ravel was in love with Misia Edwards, or wanted to marry the violinist Hélène Jourdan-Morhange. Rosenthal records and discounts contemporary speculation that Ravel, a lifelong bachelor, may have been homosexual. Such speculation recurred in a 2000 life of Ravel by

Benjamin Ivry Benjamin Ivry is an American writer on the arts, broadcaster and translator. Ivry is author of biographies of Francis Poulenc, Arthur Rimbaud, and Maurice Ravel, as well as a poetry collection, ''Paradise for the Portuguese Queen''. The latter co ...

; subsequent studies have concluded that Ravel's sexuality and personal life remain a mystery. Ravel's first concert outside France was in 1909. As the guest of the Vaughan Williamses, he visited London, where he played for the Société des Concerts Français, gaining favourable reviews and enhancing his growing international reputation.

1910 to First World War

The

Société Nationale de Musique Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...

, founded in 1871 to promote the music of rising French composers, had been dominated since the mid-1880s by a conservative faction led by

Vincent d'Indy Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy (; 27 March 18512 December 1931) was a French composer and teacher. His influence as a teacher, in particular, was considerable. He was a co-founder of the Schola Cantorum de Paris and also taught at the P ...

. Ravel, together with several other former pupils of Fauré, set up a new, modernist organisation, the Société Musicale Indépendente, with Fauré as its president. The new society's inaugural concert took place on 20 April 1910; the seven items on the programme included premieres of Fauré's song cycle '' La chanson d'Ève'', Debussy's piano suite ''D'un cahier d'esquisses'',

Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music edu ...

's ''Six pièces pour piano'' and the original piano duet version of Ravel's ''Ma mère l'Oye''. The performers included Fauré,

Florent Schmitt Florent Schmitt (; 28 September 187017 August 1958) was a French composer. He was part of the group known as Les Apaches. His most famous pieces are ''La tragédie de Salome'' and ''Psaume XLVII'' (Psalm 47). He has been described as "one of th ...

Ernest Bloch Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959) was a Swiss-born American composer. Bloch was a preeminent artist in his day, and left a lasting legacy. He is recognized as one of the greatest Swiss composers in history. As well as producing music ...

Pierre Monteux Pierre Benjamin Monteux (; 4 April 18751 July 1964) was a French (later American) conductor. After violin and viola studies, and a decade as an orchestral player and occasional conductor, he began to receive regular conducting engagements in ...

and, in the Debussy work, Ravel. Kelly considers it a sign of Ravel's new influence that the society featured Satie's music in a concert in January 1911. The first of Ravel's two operas, the one-act comedy '' L'heure espagnole'' was premiered in 1911. The work had been completed in 1907, but the manager of the Opéra-Comique, Albert Carré, repeatedly deferred its presentation. He was concerned that its plot – a

bedroom farce A bedroom farce or sex farce is a type of light comedy, which centres on the sexual pairings and recombinations of characters as they move through improbable plots and slamming doors. Overview The most famous bedroom farceur is probably George ...

– would be badly received by the ultra-respectable mothers and daughters who were an important part of the Opéra-Comique's audience. The piece was only modestly successful at its first production, and it was not until the 1920s that it became popular. In 1912 Ravel had three ballets premiered. The first, to the orchestrated and expanded version of ''Ma mère l'Oye'', opened at the Théâtre des Arts in January. The reviews were excellent: the ''

Mercure de France The was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group. The gazette was published ...

'' called the score "absolutely ravishing, a masterwork in miniature". The music rapidly entered the concert repertoire; it was played at the

Queen's Hall The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect Thomas Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. Fro ...

, London, within weeks of the Paris premiere, and was repeated at the

Proms The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hal ...

later in the same year. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' praised "the enchantment of the work... the effect of mirage, by which something quite real seems to float on nothing". New York audiences heard the work in the same year. Ravel's second ballet of 1912 was ''Adélaïde ou le langage des fleurs'', danced to the score of ''Valses nobles et sentimentales'', which opened at the Châtelet in April. '' Daphnis et Chloé'' opened at the same theatre in June. This was his largest-scale orchestral work, and took him immense trouble and several years to complete. ''Daphnis et Chloé'' was commissioned in or about 1909 by the impresario

Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pa ...

for his company, the

Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. ...

. Ravel began work with Diaghilev's choreographer,

Michel Fokine Michael Fokine, ''Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin'', group=lower-alpha ( – 22 August 1942) was a groundbreaking Imperial Russian choreographer and dancer. Career Early years Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg to a prosperous merchant an ...

, and designer,

Léon Bakst Léon Bakst (russian: Леон (Лев) Николаевич Бакст, Leon (Lev) Nikolaevich Bakst) – born as Leyb-Khaim Izrailevich (later Samoylovich) Rosenberg, Лейб-Хаим Израилевич (Самойлович) Розенбе ...

. Fokine had a reputation for his modern approach to dance, with individual numbers replaced by continuous music. This appealed to Ravel, and after discussing the action in great detail with Fokine, Ravel began composing the music. There were frequent disagreements between the collaborators, and the premiere was under-rehearsed because of the late completion of the work. It had an unenthusiastic reception and was quickly withdrawn, although it was revived successfully a year later in Monte Carlo and London. The effort to complete the ballet took its toll on Ravel's health;

neurasthenia Neurasthenia (from the Ancient Greek νεῦρον ''neuron'' "nerve" and ἀσθενής ''asthenés'' "weak") is a term that was first used at least as early as 1829 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves and became a major diagnosis in North A ...

obliged him to rest for several months after the premiere. Ravel composed little during 1913. He collaborated with Stravinsky on a performing version of

's unfinished opera ''

Khovanshchina ''Khovanshchina'' ( rus, Хованщина, , xɐˈvanʲɕːɪnə, Ru-Khovanshchina_version.ogg, sometimes rendered ''The Khovansky Affair'') is an opera (subtitled a 'national music drama') in five acts by Modest Mussorgsky. The work was writt ...

'', and his own works were the ''

Trois poèmes de Mallarmé ''Trois poèmes de Mallarmé'' is a sequence of three art songs by Maurice Ravel, based on poems by Stéphane Mallarmé for soprano, two flutes, two clarinets, piano, and string quartet. Composed in 1913, it was premiered on 14 January 1914, per ...

'' for soprano and chamber ensemble, and two short piano pieces, ''À la manière de Borodine'' and ''À la manière de Chabrier''. In 1913, together with Debussy, Ravel was among the musicians present at the dress rehearsal of ''

The Rite of Spring , image = Roerich Rite of Spring.jpg , image_size = 350px , caption = Concept design for act 1, part of Nicholas Roerich's designs for Diaghilev's 1913 production of ' , composer = Igor Stravinsky , based_on ...

''. Stravinsky later said that Ravel was the only person who immediately understood the music. Ravel predicted that the premiere of the ''Rite'' would be seen as an event of historic importance equal to that of end of ''Pelléas et Mélisande''. At the end of the year Ravel was in England, visiting the novelist

Arnold Bennett Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist. He wrote prolifically: between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboratio ...

in his Essex home; the two had known each other since meeting in 1908, when Bennett was living in France.

War

When Germany invaded France in 1914 Ravel tried to join the

French Air Force The French Air and Space Force (AAE) (french: Armée de l'air et de l'espace, ) is the air and space force of the French Armed Forces. It was the first military aviation force in history, formed in 1909 as the , a service arm of the French Ar ...

. He considered his small stature and light weight ideal for an aviator, but was rejected because of his age and a minor heart complaint. While waiting to be enlisted, Ravel composed '' Trois Chansons'', his only work for

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

choir, setting his own texts in the tradition of French 16th-century chansons. He dedicated the three songs to people who might help him to enlist. After several unsuccessful attempts to enlist, Ravel finally joined the Thirteenth Artillery Regiment as a lorry driver in March 1915, when he was forty.Orenstein (1995), p. 93 Stravinsky expressed admiration for his friend's courage: "at his age and with his name he could have had an easier place, or done nothing". Some of Ravel's duties put him in mortal danger, driving munitions at night under heavy German bombardment. At the same time his peace of mind was undermined by his mother's failing health. His own health also deteriorated; he suffered from insomnia and digestive problems, underwent a bowel operation following

amoebic dysentery Amoebiasis, or amoebic dysentery, is an infection of the intestines caused by a parasitic amoeba ''Entamoeba histolytica''. Amoebiasis can be present with no, mild, or severe symptoms. Symptoms may include lethargy, loss of weight, colonic u ...

in September 1916, and had frostbite in his feet the following winter. During the war, the Ligue Nationale pour la Defense de la Musique Française was formed by Saint-Saëns, Dubois, d'Indy and others, campaigning for a ban on the performance of contemporary German music. Ravel declined to join, telling the committee of the league in 1916, "It would be dangerous for French composers to ignore systematically the productions of their foreign colleagues, and thus form themselves into a sort of national coterie: our musical art, which is so rich at the present time, would soon degenerate, becoming isolated in banal formulas." The league responded by banning Ravel's music from its concerts. Ravel's mother died in January 1917, and he fell into a "horrible despair", compounding the distress he felt at the suffering endured by the people of his country during the war. He composed few works in the war years. The

Piano Trio A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music. The term can also refer to a group of m ...

was almost complete when the conflict began, and the most substantial of his wartime works is ''Le tombeau de Couperin'', composed between 1914 and 1917. The suite celebrates the tradition of

François Couperin François Couperin (; 10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as ''Couperin le Grand'' ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented ...

, the 18th-century French composer; each movement is dedicated to a friend of Ravel's who died in the war.

1920s

After the war, those close to Ravel recognised that he had lost much of his physical and mental stamina. As the musicologist Stephen Zank puts it, "Ravel's emotional equilibrium, so hard won in the previous decade, had been seriously compromised."Zank, p. 11 His output, never large, became smaller. Nonetheless, after the death of Debussy in 1918, he was generally seen, in France and abroad, as the leading French composer of the era. Fauré wrote to him, "I am happier than you can imagine about the solid position which you occupy and which you have acquired so brilliantly and so rapidly. It is a source of joy and pride for your old professor."Orenstein (2003), pp. 230–231 Ravel was offered the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleo ...

in 1920, and although he declined the decoration, he was viewed by the new generation of composers typified by Satie's protégés

Les Six "Les Six" () is a name given to a group of six composers, five of them French and one Swiss, who lived and worked in Montparnasse. The name, inspired by Mily Balakirev's '' The Five'', originates in two 1920 articles by critic Henri Collet in ' ...

as an establishment figure. Satie had turned against him, and commented, "Ravel refuses the Légion d'honneur, but all his music accepts it." Despite this attack, Ravel continued to admire Satie's early music, and always acknowledged the older man's influence on his own development. Ravel took a benign view of Les Six, promoting their music, and defending it against journalistic attacks. He regarded their reaction against his works as natural, and preferable to their copying his style.Kelly (2000), p. 25 Through the Société Musicale Indépendente, he was able to encourage them and composers from other countries. The Société presented concerts of recent works by American composers including

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclass ...

and George Antheil and by Vaughan Williams and his English colleagues

Arnold Bax Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral musi ...

and

Cyril Scott Cyril Meir Scott (27 September 1879 – 31 December 1970) was an English composer, writer, poet, and occultist. He created around four hundred musical compositions including piano, violin, cello concertos, symphonies, and operas. He also wrot ...

Orenstein and Zank both comment that, although Ravel's post-war output was small, averaging only one composition a year, it included some of his finest works. In 1920 he completed '' La valse'', in response to a commission from Diaghilev. He had worked on it intermittently for some years, planning a concert piece, "a sort of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, mingled with, in my mind, the impression of a fantastic, fatal whirling". It was rejected by Diaghilev, who said, "It's a masterpiece, but it's not a ballet. It's the portrait of a ballet." Ravel heard Diaghilev's verdict without protest or argument, left, and had no further dealings with him. Nichols comments that Ravel had the satisfaction of seeing the ballet staged twice by other managements before Diaghilev died. A ballet danced to the orchestral version of ''Le tombeau de Couperin'' was given at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in November 1920, and the premiere of ''La valse'' followed in December.Lesure and Nectoux, p. 10 The following year ''Daphnis et Chloé'' and ''L'heure espagnole'' were successfully revived at the Paris Opéra. In the post-war era there was a reaction against the large-scale music of composers such as

Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...

and

Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...

. Stravinsky, whose ''Rite of Spring'' was written for a huge orchestra, began to work on a much smaller scale. His 1923 ballet score ''

Les noces ''Les Noces'' (French for The Wedding; russian: Свадебка, ''Svadebka'') is a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. The composer gave it the descriptive title " ...

'' is composed for voices and twenty-one instruments. Ravel did not like the work (his opinion caused a cooling in Stravinsky's friendship with him) but he was in sympathy with the fashion for "dépouillement" – the "stripping away" of pre-war extravagance to reveal the essentials. Many of his works from the 1920s are noticeably sparer in texture than earlier pieces. Other influences on him in this period were

and

atonality Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a ...

. Jazz was popular in Parisian cafés, and French composers such as

Darius Milhaud Darius Milhaud (; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions ...

incorporated elements of it in their work. Ravel commented that he preferred jazz to

grand opera Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on o ...

, and its influence is heard in his later music.

Arnold Schönberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

's abandonment of conventional tonality also had echoes in some of Ravel's music such as the ''

Chansons madécasses ' (''Madagascan Songs'') is a set of three exotic art songs by Maurice Ravel written in 1925 and 1926 to words from the poetry collection of the same name by Évariste de Parny. Structure Scored for mezzo-soprano or baritone, flute, cello and ...

'' (1926), which Ravel doubted he could have written without the example of ''

Pierrot Lunaire ''Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot lunaire"'' ("Three times Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's 'Pierrot lunaire), commonly known simply as ''Pierrot lunaire'', Op. 21 ("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the Moonlight"), is a m ...

''. His other major works from the 1920s include the orchestral arrangement of Mussorgsky's piano suite ''

'' (1922), the opera '' L'enfant et les sortilèges'' to a libretto by

Colette Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (; 28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954), known mononymously as Colette, was a French author and woman of letters. She was also a mime, actress, and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaking world for her ...

(1926), ''

Tzigane ''Tzigane'' is a rhapsodic composition by the French composer Maurice Ravel. It was commissioned by and dedicated to Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Arányi, great-niece of the influential violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim. The original instrumentati ...

'' (1924) and the

Violin Sonata A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, often accompanied by a keyboard instrument and in earlier periods with a bass instrument doubling the keyboard bass line. The violin sonata developed from a simple baroque form with no fixed fo ...

(1927). Finding city life fatiguing, Ravel moved to the countryside. In May 1921 he took up residence at Le Belvédère, a small house on the fringe of

Montfort-l'Amaury Montfort-l'Amaury () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region, north central France. It is located north of Rambouillet. The name comes from Amaury I de Montfort, the first ''seigneur'' (lord) of Montfort. Geogra ...

, west of Paris, in the

Yvelines Yvelines () is a Departments of France, department in the western part of the Île-de-France Regions of France, region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207.département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety ...

. Looked after by a devoted housekeeper, Mme Revelot, he lived there for the rest of his life. At Le Belvédère Ravel composed and gardened, when not performing in Paris or abroad. His touring schedule increased considerably in the 1920s, with concerts in Britain, Sweden, Denmark, the US, Canada, Spain, Austria and Italy. After two months of planning, Ravel made a four-month tour of North America in 1928, playing and conducting. His fee was a guaranteed minimum of $10,000 and a constant supply of

Gauloises Gauloises (, "Gaulish" eminine pluralin French; ''cigarette'' is a feminine noun in French) is a brand of cigarette of French origin. It is produced by the company Imperial Tobacco following its acquisition of Altadis in January 2008 in most cou ...

cigarettes. He appeared with most of the leading orchestras in Canada and the US and visited twenty-five cities. Audiences were enthusiastic and the critics were complimentary. At an all-Ravel programme conducted by

Serge Koussevitzky Sergei Alexandrovich KoussevitzkyKoussevitzky's original Russian forename is usually transliterated into English as either "Sergei" or "Sergey"; however, he himself adopted the French spelling "Serge", using it in his signature. (SeThe Koussevi ...

in New York, the entire audience stood up and applauded as the composer took his seat. Ravel was touched by this spontaneous gesture and observed, "You know, this doesn't happen to me in Paris."Orenstein (2003), p. 10 Orenstein, commenting that this tour marked the zenith of Ravel's international reputation, lists its non-musical highlights as a visit to Poe's house in New York, and excursions to

Niagara Falls Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the Canada–United States border, border between the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario in Canada and the U.S. state, state ...

and the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

. Ravel was unmoved by his new international celebrity. He commented that the critics' recent enthusiasm was of no more importance than their earlier judgment, when they called him "the most perfect example of insensitivity and lack of emotion".Orenstein (1991), p. 104 The last composition Ravel completed in the 1920s, ''Boléro'', became his most famous. He was commissioned to provide a score for

Ida Rubinstein Ida Lvovna Rubinstein (russian: И́да Льво́вна Рубинште́йн; – 20 September 1960) was a Russian dancer, actress, art patron and Belle Époque figure. She performed with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1909 to 1911 an ...

's ballet company, and having been unable to secure the rights to orchestrate Albéniz's ''

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese language, Aragonese and Occitan language, Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a pe ...

'', he decided on "an experiment in a very special and limited direction... a piece lasting seventeen minutes and consisting wholly of orchestral tissue without music". Ravel continued that the work was "one long, very gradual crescendo. There are no contrasts, and there is practically no invention except the plan and the manner of the execution. The themes are altogether impersonal."''Quoted'' in Orenstein (2003), p. 477 He was astonished, and not wholly pleased, that it became a mass success. When one elderly member of the audience at the Opéra shouted "Rubbish!" at the premiere, he remarked, "That old lady got the message!" The work was popularised by the conductor

Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orch ...

, and has been recorded several hundred times. Ravel commented to

Arthur Honegger Arthur Honegger (; 10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss composer who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. A member of Les Six, his best known work is probably ''Antigone'', composed between 1924 and 1927 t ...

, one of Les Six, "I've written only one masterpiece – ''Boléro''. Unfortunately there's no music in it."

Last years

At the beginning of the 1930s Ravel was working on two piano concertos. He completed the Piano Concerto in D major for the Left Hand first. It was commissioned by the Austrian pianist

Paul Wittgenstein Paul Wittgenstein (November 5, 1887March 3, 1961) was an Austrian-American concert pianist notable for commissioning new piano concerti for the left hand alone, following the amputation of his right arm during the First World War. He devised nove ...

, who had lost his right arm during the war. Ravel was stimulated by the technical challenges of the project: "In a work of this kind, it is essential to give the impression of a texture no thinner than that of a part written for both hands." Ravel, not proficient enough to perform the work with only his left hand, demonstrated it with both hands. Wittgenstein was initially disappointed by the piece, but after long study he became fascinated by it and ranked it as a great work. In January 1932 he premiered it in Vienna to instant acclaim, and performed it in Paris with Ravel conducting the following year. The critic Henry Prunières wrote, "From the opening measures, we are plunged into a world in which Ravel has but rarely introduced us." The Piano Concerto in G major was completed a year later. After the premiere in January 1932 there was high praise for the soloist, Marguerite Long, and for Ravel's score, though not for his conducting. Long, the dedicatee, played the concerto in more than twenty European cities, with the composer conducting; they planned to record it together, but at the sessions Ravel confined himself to supervising proceedings and

Pedro de Freitas Branco Pedro de Freitas Branco (1896 – 1963) was a Portuguese conductor and composer. Life and career Branco was born in Lisbon, and studied music with Tomás Vaz de Borba and Luís de Freitas Branco (his elder brother). He founded the Portuguese O ...

conducted. In October 1932 Ravel suffered a blow to the head in a taxi accident. The injury was not thought serious at the time, but in a study for the ''

British Medical Journal ''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...

'' in 1988 the neurologist R. A. Henson concludes that it may have exacerbated an existing cerebral condition. As early as 1927 close friends had been concerned at Ravel's growing absent-mindedness, and within a year of the accident he started to experience symptoms suggesting

aphasia Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine but aphasia due to stroke is estimated to be 0.1–0.4% in ...

. Before the accident he had begun work on music for a film, ''

Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of West ...

'' (1933), but he was unable to meet the production schedule, and

Jacques Ibert Jacques François Antoine Marie Ibert (15 August 1890 – 5 February 1962) was a French composer of classical music. Having studied music from an early age, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won its top prize, the Prix de Rome at his firs ...

wrote most of the score. Ravel completed three songs for

baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the ...

and orchestra intended for the film; they were published as ''Don Quichotte à Dulcinée''. The manuscript orchestral score is in Ravel's hand, but Lucien Garban and Manuel Rosenthal helped in transcription. Ravel composed no more after this.Henson, p. 1586 The exact nature of his illness is unknown. Experts have ruled out the possibility of a

tumour A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

, and have variously suggested

frontotemporal dementia Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), or frontotemporal degeneration disease, or frontotemporal neurocognitive disorder, encompasses several types of dementia involving the progressive degeneration of frontal and temporal lobes. FTDs broadly present as ...

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As ...

and

Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), also known as subacute spongiform encephalopathy or neurocognitive disorder due to prion disease, is an invariably fatal degenerative brain disorder. Early symptoms include memory problems, behavioral changes ...

. Though no longer able to write music or perform, Ravel remained physically and socially active until his last months. Henson notes that Ravel preserved most or all his auditory imagery and could still hear music in his head. In 1937 Ravel began to suffer pain from his condition, and was examined by

Clovis Vincent Clovis Vincent was born September 26, 1879 in Ingré (Loiret) and died November 14, 1947 in Paris. He was a French neurologist and neurosurgeon. With Thierry de Martel (1875-1940), he was one of the founders of neurosurgery in France. Career St ...

, a well-known Paris neurosurgeon. Vincent advised surgical treatment. He thought a tumour unlikely, and expected to find ventricular dilatation that surgery might prevent from progressing. Ravel's brother Edouard accepted this advice; as Henson comments, the patient was in no state to express a considered view. After the operation there seemed to be an improvement in his condition, but it was short-lived, and he soon lapsed into a coma. He died on 28 December, at the age of 62. On 30 December 1937 Ravel was interred next to his parents in a granite tomb at

Levallois-Perret cemetery The Levallois-Perret Cemetery (french: Cimetière de Levallois-Perret, also known simply as ''Cimetière de Levallois'') is a cemetery in the commune of Levallois-Perret in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. Strictly speaking it is just out ...

, in north-west Paris. He was an atheist and there was no religious ceremony.

Music

Marcel Marnat's catalogue of Ravel's complete works lists eighty-five works, including many incomplete or abandoned.Marnat, pp. 721–784 Though that total is small in comparison with the output of his major contemporaries, it is nevertheless inflated by Ravel's frequent practice of writing works for piano and later rewriting them as independent pieces for orchestra. The performable body of works numbers about sixty; slightly more than half are instrumental. Ravel's music includes pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concerti, ballet music, opera and song cycles. He wrote no symphonies or church works. Ravel drew on many generations of French composers from Couperin and Rameau to Fauré and the more recent innovations of Satie and Debussy. Foreign influences include Mozart,

Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

and Chopin. He considered himself in many ways a

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Cla ...

, often using traditional structures and forms, such as the ternary, to present his new melodic and rhythmic content and innovative harmonies. The influence of jazz on his later music is heard within conventional classical structures in the Piano Concerto and the Violin Sonata. Ravel placed high importance on melody, telling Vaughan Williams that there is "an implied melodic outline in all vital music". As a result, there are few leading notes in his output. Chords of the ninth and eleventh and unresolved

appoggiatura An appoggiatura ( , ; german: Vorschlag or ; french: port de voix) is a musical ornament that consists of an added non-chord note in a melody that is resolved to the regular note of the chord. By putting the non-chord tone on a strong beat, (ty ...

s, such as those in the ''Valses nobles et sentimentales'', are characteristic of Ravel's harmonic language. Dance forms appealed to Ravel, most famously the

bolero Bolero is a genre of song which originated in eastern Cuba in the late 19th century as part of the trova tradition. Unrelated to the older Spanish dance of the same name, bolero is characterized by sophisticated lyrics dealing with love. It has ...

and pavane, but also the

minuet A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''. The term also describes the musical form that accomp ...

, forlane,

rigaudon The rigaudon (also spelled rigadon, rigadoon) is a French baroque dance with a lively duple metre. The music is similar to that of a bourrée, but the rigaudon is rhythmically simpler with regular phrases (eight measure phrases are most common). ...

waltz The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position. History There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the wa ...

, czardas, habanera and passacaglia. National and regional consciousness was important to him, and although a planned concerto on Basque themes never materialised, his works include allusions to Hebraic,

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, Hungarian and gypsy themes. He wrote several short pieces paying tribute to composers he admired –

Borodin Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin ( rus, link=no, Александр Порфирьевич Бородин, Aleksandr Porfir’yevich Borodin , p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr pɐrˈfʲi rʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bərɐˈdʲin, a=RU-Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin.ogg, ...

, Chabrier, Fauré and

Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...

, interpreting their characteristics in a Ravellian style. Another important influence was literary rather than musical: Ravel said that he learnt from Poe that "true art is a perfect balance between pure intellect and emotion", with the corollary that a piece of music should be a perfectly balanced entity with no irrelevant material allowed to intrude.

Operas

Ravel completed two operas, and worked on three others. The unrealised three were ''Olympia'', ''La cloche engloutie'' and ''Jeanne d'Arc''. ''Olympia'' was to be based on Hoffmann's ''The Sandman''; he made sketches for it in 1898–99, but did not progress far. ''La cloche engloutie'' after

Hauptmann is a German word usually translated as captain when it is used as an officer's rank in the German, Austrian, and Swiss armies. While in contemporary German means 'main', it also has and originally had the meaning of 'head', i.e. ' literally ...

's '' The Sunken Bell'' occupied him intermittently from 1906 to 1912, Ravel destroyed the sketches for both these works, except for a ''"Symphonie horlogère"'' which he incorporated into the opening of ''L'heure espagnole''. The third unrealised project was an operatic version of Joseph Delteil's 1925 novel about

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= �an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronat ...

. It was to be a large-scale, full-length work for the Paris Opéra, but Ravel's final illness prevented him from writing it. Ravel's first completed opera was ''L'heure espagnole'' (premiered in 1911), described as a "comédie musicale". It is among the works set in or illustrating Spain that Ravel wrote throughout his career. Nichols comments that the essential Spanish colouring gave Ravel a reason for virtuoso use of the modern orchestra, which the composer considered "perfectly designed for underlining and exaggerating comic effects".

Edward Burlingame Hill Edward Burlingame Hill (September 9, 1872 in Cambridge, Massachusetts – July 9, 1960 in Francestown, New Hampshire) was an American composer. Career After graduating from Harvard University in 1894, Hill studied music in Boston with John Kno ...

found Ravel's vocal writing particularly skilful in the work, "giving the singers something besides recitative without hampering the action", and "commenting orchestrally upon the dramatic situations and the sentiments of the actors without diverting attention from the stage". Some find the characters artificial and the piece lacking in humanity.Nichols, Roger
"Heure espagnole, L'"
, ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', Oxford Music Online, Oxford University Press, retrieved 14 March 2015 The critic David Murray writes that the score "glows with the famous Ravel ''tendresse''." The second opera, also in one act, is ''L'enfant et les sortilèges'' (1926), a "fantaisie lyrique" to a libretto by Colette. She and Ravel had planned the story as a ballet, but at the composer's suggestion Colette turned it into an opera libretto. It is more uncompromisingly modern in its musical style than ''L'heure espagnole'', and the jazz elements and

bitonality Polytonality (also polyharmony) is the musical use of more than one key simultaneously. Bitonality is the use of only two different keys at the same time. Polyvalence or polyvalency is the use of more than one harmonic function, from the same key, ...

of much of the work upset many Parisian opera-goers. Ravel was once again accused of artificiality and lack of human emotion, but Nichols finds "profoundly serious feeling at the heart of this vivid and entertaining work". The score presents an impression of simplicity, disguising intricate links between themes, with, in Murray's phrase, "extraordinary and bewitching sounds from the orchestra pit throughout". Although one-act operas are generally staged less often than full-length ones, Ravel's are produced regularly in France and abroad.

Other vocal works

A substantial proportion of Ravel's output was vocal. His early works in that sphere include cantatas written for his unsuccessful attempts at the Prix de Rome. His other vocal music from that period shows Debussy's influence, in what Kelly describes as "a static, recitative-like vocal style", prominent piano parts and rhythmic flexibility. By 1906 Ravel was taking even further than Debussy the natural, sometimes colloquial, setting of the French language in ''Histoires naturelles''. The same technique is highlighted in ''

'' (1913); Debussy set two of the three poems at the same time as Ravel, and the former's word-setting is noticeably more formal than the latter's, in which syllables are often elided. In the cycles ''Shéhérazade'' and ''Chansons madécasses'', Ravel gives vent to his taste for the exotic, even the sensual, in both the vocal line and the accompaniment. Ravel's songs often draw on vernacular styles, using elements of many folk traditions in such works as ''Cinq mélodies populaires grecques'', ''Deux mélodies hébraïques'' and ''Chants populaires''. Among the poets on whose lyrics he drew were Marot,

Léon-Paul Fargue Léon-Paul Fargue (, 4 March 187624 November 1947) was a French poet and essayist. He was born in Paris, France, on rue Coquilliére. As a poet he was noted for his poetry of atmosphere and detail. His work spanned numerous literary movements. ...

Leconte de Lisle Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle (; 22 October 1818 – 17 July 1894) was a French poet of the Parnassian movement. He is traditionally known by his surname only, Leconte de Lisle''. Biography Leconte de Lisle was born on the French overseas ...

and Verlaine. For three songs dating from 1914 to 1915, he wrote his own texts. Although Ravel wrote for mixed choirs and male solo voices, he is chiefly associated, in his songs, with the soprano and mezzo-soprano voices. Even when setting lyrics clearly narrated by a man, he often favoured a female voice, and he seems to have preferred his best-known cycle, ''Shéhérazade'', to be sung by a woman, although a tenor voice is a permitted alternative in the score.

Orchestral works

During his lifetime it was above all as a master of orchestration that Ravel was famous. He minutely studied the ability of each orchestral instrument to determine its potential, putting its individual colour and timbre to maximum use. The critic

Alexis Roland-Manuel Alexis Roland-Manuel (22 March 18911 November 1966) was a French composer and critic, remembered mainly for his criticism. Biography He was born Roland Alexis Manuel Lévy in Paris, to a family of Belgian and Jewish origins. He studied composi ...

wrote, "In reality he is, with Stravinsky, the one man in the world who best knows the weight of a trombone-note, the harmonics of a 'cello or a ''pp''

tam-tam A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

in the relationships of one orchestral group to another." Bakst Daphnis et Chloë Set Act II 1912

For all Ravel's orchestral mastery, only four of his works were conceived as concert works for symphony orchestra: ''Rapsodie espagnole'', ''La valse'' and the two concertos. All the other orchestral works were written either for the stage, as in ''Daphnis et Chloé'', or as a reworking of piano pieces, ''Alborada del gracioso'' and ''Une barque sur l'ocean'', (''Miroirs''), ''Valses nobles et sentimentales,'' ''Ma mère l'Oye'', ''Tzigane'' (originally for violin and piano) and ''Le tombeau de Couperin.'' In the orchestral versions, the instrumentation generally clarifies the harmonic language of the score and brings sharpness to classical dance rhythms. Occasionally, as in the ''Alborada del gracioso'', critics have found the later orchestral version less persuasive than the sharp-edged piano original. In some of his scores from the 1920s, including ''Daphnis et Chloé'', Ravel frequently divides his upper strings, having them play in six to eight parts while the woodwind are required to play with extreme agility. His writing for the brass ranges from softly muted to triple-forte outbursts at climactic points. In the 1930s he tended to simplify his orchestral textures. The lighter tone of the G major Piano Concerto follows the models of

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

and Saint-Saëns, alongside use of jazz-like themes. The critics

Edward Sackville-West Edward Charles Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville (13 November 1901 – 4 July 1965) was a British music critic, novelist and, in his last years, a member of the House of Lords. Musically gifted as a boy, he was attracted as a young man to a li ...

and

Desmond Shawe-Taylor Desmond Philip Shawe-Taylor (born 30 September 1955) was Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures from 2005 to 2020. He succeeded Christopher Lloyd on Lloyd's retirement.Boléro ''Boléro'' is a 1928 work for large orchestra by French composer Maurice Ravel. At least one observer has called it Ravel's most famous composition. It was also one of his last completed works before illness forced him into retirement. Co ...

'' (1928), was conceived several years before its completion; in 1924 he said that he was contemplating "a symphonic poem without a subject, where the whole interest will be in the rhythm". Ravel made orchestral versions of piano works by Schumann, Chabrier, Debussy and Mussorgsky's piano suite ''Pictures at an Exhibition''. Orchestral versions of the last by

Mikhail Tushmalov Mikhail Tushmalov ( ka, თუშმალიშვილი; 1861–1896; also Tushmalishvili) was a Russian Georgian opera conductor who held posts in Warsaw and Tiflis (Tbilisi). He died in what is now the nation of Georgia. Tushmalov is most ...

Sir Henry Wood Sir Henry Joseph Wood (3 March 186919 August 1944) was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the The Proms, Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introd ...

and

Leo Funtek Leo Funtek (August 21, 1885 – January 13, 1965) was a Slovenian violinist, conductor and arranger. He is best known for work as a music professor and for his 1922 arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's piano suite '' Pictures at an Exhibition''. ...

predated Ravel's 1922 version, and many more have been made since, but Ravel's remains the best known. Kelly remarks on its "dazzling array of instrumental colour", and a contemporary reviewer commented on how, in dealing with another composer's music, Ravel had produced an orchestral sound wholly unlike his own.

Piano music

Although Ravel wrote fewer than thirty works for the piano, they exemplify his range; Orenstein remarks that the composer keeps his personal touch "from the striking simplicity of ''Ma mère l'Oye'' to the transcendental virtuosity of ''Gaspard de la nuit''". Ravel's earliest major work for piano, ''Jeux d'eau'' (1901), is frequently cited as evidence that he evolved his style independently of Debussy, whose major works for piano all came later. When writing for solo piano, Ravel rarely aimed at the intimate chamber effect characteristic of Debussy, but sought a Lisztian virtuosity. The authors of ''The Record Guide'' consider that works such as ''Gaspard de la Nuit'' and ''Miroirs'' have a beauty and originality with a deeper inspiration "in the harmonic and melodic genius of Ravel himself".Sackville-West and Shawe-Taylor, p. 613 Most of Ravel's piano music is extremely difficult to play, and presents pianists with a balance of technical and artistic challenges. Writing of the piano music the critic Andrew Clark commented in 2013, "A successful Ravel interpretation is a finely balanced thing. It involves subtle musicianship, a feeling for pianistic colour and the sort of lightly worn virtuosity that masks the advanced technical challenges he makes in ''Alborada del gracioso''... and the two outer movements of ''Gaspard de la nuit''. Too much temperament, and the music loses its classical shape; too little, and it sounds pale."Clark, Andrew
"All the best: Ravel's piano music"
, ''The Financial Times'', 16 January 2013 This balance caused a breach between the composer and Viñes, who said that if he observed the nuances and speeds Ravel stipulated in ''Gaspard de la nuit'', "Le gibet" would "bore the audience to death". Some pianists continue to attract criticism for over-interpreting Ravel's piano writing.Clements, Andrew
"Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit"
, ''The Guardian'', 26 October 2001 Ravel's regard for his predecessors is heard in several of his piano works; ''Menuet sur le nom de Haydn'' (1909), ''À la manière de Borodine'' (1912), ''À la manière de Chabrier'' (1913) and ''Le tombeau de Couperin'' all incorporate elements of the named composers interpreted in a characteristically Ravellian manner. Clark comments that those piano works which Ravel later orchestrated are overshadowed by the revised versions: "Listen to ''Le tombeau de Couperin'' and the complete ballet music for ''Ma mère L'Oye'' in the classic recordings conducted by

André Cluytens André Cluytens (, ; born Augustin Zulma Alphonse Cluytens; 26 March 19053 June 1967)Baeck E. ''André Cluytens: Itinéraire d’un chef d’orchestre.'' Editions Mardaga, Wavre, 2009. was a Belgian-born French conductor who was active in the con ...

, and the piano versions never sound quite the same again."

Chamber music

Apart from a one-movement sonata for violin and piano dating from 1899, unpublished in the composer's lifetime, Ravel wrote seven chamber works. The earliest is the String Quartet (1902–03), dedicated to Fauré, and showing the influence of Debussy's quartet of ten years earlier. Like the Debussy, it differs from the more monumental quartets of the established French school of Franck and his followers, with more succinct melodies, fluently interchanged, in flexible tempos and varieties of instrumental colour. The Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet (1905) was composed very quickly by Ravel's standards. It is an ethereal piece in the vein of the '' Pavane pour une infante défunte''. Ravel also worked at unusual speed on the Piano Trio (1914) to complete it before joining the French Army. It contains Basque, Baroque and far Eastern influences, and shows Ravel's growing technical skill, dealing with the difficulties of balancing the percussive piano with the sustained sound of the violin and cello, "blending the two disparate elements in a musical language that is unmistakably his own," in the words of the commentator Keith Anderson. Ravel's four chamber works composed after the First World War are the Sonata for Violin and Cello (1920–22), the "Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Fauré" for violin and piano (1922), the chamber original of ''Tzigane'' for violin and piano (1924) and finally the Violin Sonata (1923–27). The two middle works are respectively an affectionate tribute to Ravel's teacher, and a virtuoso display piece for the violinist

Jelly d'Arányi Jelly d'Aranyi, fully Jelly Aranyi de Hunyadvár ( hu, Hunyadvári Aranyi Jelly (30 May 189330 March 1966) was a Hungarian violinist who made her home in London. She was born in Budapest, the great-niece of Joseph Joachim and sister of the violin ...

. The Violin and Cello Sonata is a departure from the rich textures and harmonies of the pre-war Piano Trio: the composer said that it marked a turning point in his career, with thinness of texture pushed to the extreme and harmonic charm renounced in favour of pure melody.Orenstein (2003), p. 32 His last chamber work, the Violin Sonata (sometimes called the Second after the posthumous publication of his student sonata), is a frequently dissonant work. Ravel said that the violin and piano are "essentially incompatible" instruments, and that his Sonata reveals their incompatibility. Sackville-West and Shawe-Taylor consider the post-war sonatas "rather laboured and unsatisfactory", and neither work has matched the popularity of Ravel's pre-war chamber works.

Recordings

Ravel's interpretations of some of his piano works were captured on piano roll between 1914 and 1928, although some rolls supposedly played by him may have been made under his supervision by

Robert Casadesus Robert Marcel Casadesus (7 April 1899 – 19 September 1972) was a renowned 20th-century French pianist and composer. He was the most prominent member of a distinguished musical family, being the nephew of Henri Casadesus and Marius Casadesus, ...

, a better pianist.Orenstein (2003) pp. 532–533 Transfers of the rolls have been released on compact disc. In 1913 there was a gramophone recording of ''Jeux d'eau'' played by

Mark Hambourg Mark Hambourg (russian: Марк Михайлович Гамбург, 1 June 1879 – 26 August 1960) was a Russian British concert pianist. Life Mark Hambourg was the eldest son of the pianist Michael Hambourg (1855–1916), a pupil o ...

, and by the early 1920s there were discs featuring the ''Pavane pour une infante défunte'' and ''Ondine'', and movements from the String Quartet, ''Le tombeau de Couperin'' and ''Ma mère l'Oye''."Ravel"
, Discography search, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, retrieved 15 March 2015 Ravel was among the first composers who recognised the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public, and throughout the 1920s there was a steady stream of recordings of his works, some of which featured the composer as pianist or conductor. A 1932 recording of the G major Piano Concerto was advertised as "Conducted by the composer", although he had in fact supervised the sessions while a more proficient conductor took the baton. Recordings for which Ravel actually was the conductor included a ''Boléro'' in 1930, and a sound film of a 1933 performance of the D major concerto with Wittgenstein as soloist.

Honours and legacy

Ravel declined not only the Légion d'honneur, but all state honours from France, refusing to let his name go forward for election to the

Institut de France The (; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the Académie Française. It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institut ...

. He accepted foreign awards, including honorary membership of the

Royal Philharmonic Society The Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) is a British music society, formed in 1813. Its original purpose was to promote performances of instrumental music in London. Many composers and performers have taken part in its concerts. It is now a memb ...

in 1921, the Belgian Ordre de Léopold in 1926, and an honorary doctorate from the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in 1928. After Ravel's death, his brother and legatee, Edouard, turned the composer's house at Montfort-l'Amaury into a museum, leaving it substantially as Ravel had known it. , the maison-musée de Maurice Ravel remains open for guided tours. In his later years, Edouard Ravel declared his intention to leave the bulk of the composer's estate to the city of Paris for the endowment of a Nobel Prize in music, but evidently changed his mind. After his death in 1960, the estate passed through several hands. Despite the substantial royalties paid for performing Ravel's music, the news magazine ''

Le Point ''Le Point'' () is a French weekly political and news magazine published in Paris. History and profile ''Le Point'' was founded in September 1972 by a group of journalists who had, one year earlier, left the editorial team of '' L'Express'', w ...

'' reported in 2000 that it was unclear who the beneficiaries were. The British newspaper ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' reported in 2001 that no money from royalties had been forthcoming for the maintenance of the Ravel museum at Montfort-l'Amaury, which was in a poor state of repair.Henley, Jon
"Poor Ravel"
, ''The Guardian'', 25 April 2001 Many works were dedicated to Ravel, including: * ''Air Louis XIII'' by Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx * ''Chant de joie'' by

* ''Esquisse d'Espagne'' by Gustave Samazeuilh * ''4 Hommages pour le piano'' by

* ''11 Inventions'' by

Erwin Schulhoff Erwin Schulhoff ( cs, Ervín Šulhov; 8 June 189418 August 1942) was an Austro-Czech composer and pianist. He was one of the figures in the generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the ...

* ''3 Japanese Lyrics'' by

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...

* ''9 Pezzi'' by

Alfredo Casella Alfredo Casella (25 July 18835 March 1947) was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor. Life and career Casella was born in Turin, the son of Maria (née Bordino) and Carlo Casella. His family included many musicians: his grandfather, a fr ...

* ''Piano Concerto for the Left Hand No. 2'' by Utsyo Chakraborty * ''3 Pieces'' by Arthur Honegger * ''4 Poemes hindous'' by

Maurice Delage Maurice Charles Delage (13 November 1879 – 19 or 21 September 1961) was a French composer and pianist. Biography Delage was born and died in Paris. He first worked as a clerk for a maritime agency in Paris, and later as a fishmonger in Boul ...

* ''7 Preludes'' by

Alexandre Tansman Alexander Tansman ( pl, Aleksander Tansman, link=no, French: Alexandre Tansman; 12 June 1897 – 15 November 1986) was a Polish composer, pianist and conductor who became a naturalized French citizen in 1938. One of the earliest representatives of ...

* ''24 Preludes'' by

* ''3 Sarabandes'' by

* String Trio by Roland-Manuel Many works have been written in memoriam of Ravel, including: * ''Elegy in Memory of Maurice Ravel'' by David Diamond * ''Waltz "In Memoriam of Maurice Ravel"'' (1976) by

Robert Moran Robert Moran (born January 8, 1937) is an American composer of operas and ballets as well as numerous orchestral, vocal, chamber and dance works. Life A native of Denver, Moran studied twelve-tone music privately with Hans Apostel in Vienna and ...

(also has been arranged for harp by Mario Falcao) * ''Sinfonia in memoriam Maurice Ravel'' (1940) by Rudolf Escher * ''Douze etudes d'interprétation'': ''No. 4 "Main gauche seule (in memoriam Maurice Ravel)"'' (1983) by

Maurice Ohana Maurice Ohana (12 June 1913 – 13 November 1992) was a French composer. Ohana's output includes choral works, string quartets, suites for ten-string guitar, a ''Tiento'' for six-string guitar, and operas. Life and career Ohana was born in Casab ...

* ''Toccata and Fugue in memoriam Maurice Ravel'', for organ by Josef Friedrich Doppelbauer

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References

Sources

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External links

Free scores

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Miscellaneous

Maurice Ravel Frontispice
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Institutions

International Academy of Music from Saint-Jean-de-Luz: Académie internationale de Musique Maurice Ravel de Saint-Jean-de-Luz

Maurice Ravel's Friends Society: Les Amis de Maurice Ravel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ravel, Maurice 1875 births 1937 deaths 19th-century classical composers 20th-century French male classical pianists 19th-century French composers 19th-century French male musicians 20th-century classical composers 20th-century conductors (music) 20th-century French composers Ballets Russes composers Burials at Levallois-Perret Cemetery Composers for piano Neurological disease deaths in France French atheists French ballet composers French-Basque people French classical composers French male classical composers French opera composers French people of Basque descent Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society Impressionist composers Jazz-influenced classical composers Légion d'honneur refusals Male opera composers Neoclassical composers People from Labourd People with traumatic brain injuries Prix de Rome for composition French military personnel of World War I French people of Swiss descent