Composer, born in Ciboure, SW France. He studied under Fauré at the Paris Conservatoire, and won recognition with the Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899, Pavane for a Dead Princess). He wrote several successful piano pieces, Rapsodie espagnole (1908, Spanish Rhapsody), and the music for the Diaghilev ballet Daphnis et Chloé (first performed, 1912). After World War 1, in which he saw active service, his works included the choreographic poem La Valse (1920), the opera L'Enfant et les sortilèges (1925, The Child and the Enchantments), and Boléro (1928), intended as a miniature ballet.
Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) was a French composer and pianist, known especially for the subtlety, richness, and poignancy of his music and generally considered to be one of the major composers of the 20th century. Ravel's piano compositions, such as Miroirs and Gaspard de la Nuit are virtuosic, and his orchestrations, such as in Daphnis et Chloé and his orchestral arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, are notable for the effective use of tonal color and variety of sound and instrumentation. According to Sacem, Ravel earns more royalties than any other French musician.
Biography
Ravel was born in Ciboure, France near Biarritz, part of the French Basque region, bordering on Spain. His mother, Marie Delouart, was Basque while his father, Joseph Ravel, was a Swiss inventor and industrialist. After the family moved to Paris, Ravel's younger brother Edouard was born. During his schooling in Paris, Ravel joined with a number of innovative young artists who referred to themselves as the "Apaches" ("hooligans") because of their wild abandon. During his years at the conservatory, Ravel tried numerous times to win the prestigious Prix de Rome, but to no avail. After a scandal involving his loss of the prize in 1905 (to Victor Gallois), even though he was considered the favourite to win that year, Ravel left the conservatory. The incident—named the Ravel Affair by the Parisian press—also led to the resignation of the Conservatoire's director, Théodore Dubois.
While many critics claim Ravel was influenced by composer Claude Debussy, Ravel himself claimed he was much more influenced by Mozart and Couperin, whose compositions are much more structured and classical in form. Ravel and Debussy were, however, clearly the defining composers of the impressionist movement. Ravel was also highly influenced by music from around the world including American Jazz, Asian music, and traditional folk songs from across Europe. Ravel had left the Roman Catholic Church and was a self-declared atheist, although he was also a spiritualist like many skeptics of his generation.
Ravel later worked with ballet choreographer Sergei Diaghilev who staged Ma Mère l'Oye and Daphnis et Chloé. Ravel continued his feud with the French musical establishment: In 1920, the French government awarded him with the Légion d'honneur, but Ravel refused.
In 1928, Ravel for the first time began a piano tour in America.
Ravel never married, but he did have several long-running relationships. Many of his friends have suggested that Ravel was known to frequent the bordellos of Paris, but the issue of his sexuality remains largely a mystery.
Though Maurice considered his small size and light weight an advantage to becoming a pilot, during the First World War Ravel was not allowed to enlist as a pilot because of his age and weak health. Instead, upon his enlistment, Maurice Ravel became a truck driver.
In 1932 Ravel was involved in an automobile accident that severely undermined his health.
Musical style
Ravel considered himself in many ways a classicist.
Though Ravel's music has tonal centers, it was innovative for the time period. In keeping with the French school pioneered by Chabrier, Satie, and Debussy (to name a few), Ravel's melodies are almost exclusively modal. Ravel was fond of chords of the ninth and eleventh, and the acidity of his harmonies is largely the result of a fondness for unresolved appoggiaturas (listen to the Valses Nobles et Sentimentales). Other forms from which Ravel drew material include the forlane, rigaudon, waltz, czardas, habanera, passacaglia, and the bolero.
Ravel has almost always been considered one of the two great French musical Impressionists (the other being Debussy), but in reality he is much more than a mere Impressionist. In his A la maniere de...Borodine (In the manner of...Borodine), Ravel plays with the ability to both mimic and remain original. In a more complex situation, A la maniere de...Emmanuel Chabrier /Paraphrase sur un air de Gounod ("Faust IIème acte"), Ravel takes on a theme from Gounod's Faust and arranges it in the style of Emmanuel Chabrier. Even in writing in the style of others, Ravel's own voice as a composer remained distinct.
Ravel had very meticulously crafted manuscripts. In a letter, Ravel wrote that when proofing L'enfant et les sortilèges, after many other editors had proofread the opera, he could still find ten errors per page. Each piece was carefully crafted, although Ravel wished that, like the historical composers he admired, he could write a great quantity of works. Igor Stravinsky once referred to Ravel as the "Swiss Watchmaker", a reference to the intricacy and precision of Ravel's works.
Musical Influence
On the surface, he was influenced by Debussy, but also the music of Russia, Spain and the jazz music of the United States, as reflected in the movement titled Blues from his G major violin sonata.
Ravel wrote, in 1928, that composers should be aware of both individual and national consciousness. That year, Ravel had toured the United States and Canada by train performing piano recitals in the great concert halls of twenty-five cities. When American composer George Gershwin met Ravel, he mentioned that he would have liked to study with the French composer if that were possible. Of the Concerto in G, Ravel said the concertos of Mozart and Saint-Saëns served as his model. Instead, Ravel abandoned the piece, using its nationalistic themes and rhythms in some of his other pieces.
Ravel commented that André Gédalge, his professor of counterpoint, was very important in the development of his skill as a composer.
Notable compositions
Menuet antique (piano, 1895, orchestrated in 1929) Schéhérazade (ouverture de féerie) (1897) Jeux d'eau (piano, 1901) String Quartet in F (1903) Schéhérazade (orchestral song cycle, 1903) Sonatine (piano, 1903-1905) Miroirs (Mirrors) III. Alborada del gracioso ("Aubade of the Clown") (piano 1905, orchestra 1918) Histoires naturelles ("Natural Histories") (song cycle, 1906) Rapsodie espagnole ("Spanish Rhapsody") (orchestra, 1907) L'heure espagnole ("The Spanish Hour") (opera, 1907–1909) Gaspard de la nuit ("Phantom of the Night") (piano, 1908) Pavane pour une infante défunte ("Pavane for a Dead Princess") (piano 1899, orchestra 1910) Ma Mère l'Oye ("Mother Goose") (piano duet 1908–1910, ballet 1911) Daphnis et Chloé ("Daphne and Chloé") (ballet, 1909–1912) Valses nobles et sentimentales ("Noble and Sentimental Waltzes") (piano 1911, orchestra 1912) Piano Trio in A minor (1914) Le Tombeau de Couperin ("The Tomb of Couperin") (piano 1914–1917, orchestra 1919) Sonata for Violin and Cello Sonata for Violin and Piano La Valse (choreographic poem, 1906–1914 and 1919–1920) L'enfant et les sortilèges ("The Child and the Spells", lyric fantasy, 1920–1925, libretto by Colette 1917) Tzigane (violin and piano, 1924) Boléro (ballet, 1928) Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D (1929–1930) Piano Concerto in G (1929–1931) Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (songs, 1932–1933)For a complete list of works, see List of compositions by Maurice Ravel.
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