Ravel is extremely popular with Boléro, his one-movement orchestral Schéhérazade, and his first piece, Pavane pour une infante défunte. Like Debussy, he created a music style inspired by Impressionism, especially paintings by Monet.
Ravel was one of 20th century's original and influential composers. Beyond Boléro, some of his works are fascinating, evoking images of mood, expressive of his love of fairy tales and fantasy. He also delighted in clocks and mechanical toys. He wrote superbly for the orchestra and piano.
Early Life and Musical Training
Composer and pianist Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was born in Ciboure on March 7, a son of a railway Swiss-French engineer and a Basque mother. He began his piano lessons at the age of seven and aged fourteen, he enrolled at the Paris Conservatory, remaining there as a student for ten years, but failing to gain the prestigious Prix de Rome.
While in the Conservatory, in 1897, he also continued some studies with the composer Gabriel Fauré. Later, he also met Stravinsky through the avant-garde artistic group "Les Apaches" comprising of musicians, writers, poets, painters and critics, of which he was a member. His first piece was Pavane pour une infante defunte. Few years before the First World War, his ballet Daphnis and Chloë was performed in Paris.
He volunteered his service in the 1914-18 war, but was rejected as medically unfit; he still joined the army as a truck driver. After the war he suffered from insomnia and nervous debility, but his career went well.
Post-War Career
After Debussy died, in 1918, Ravel's own style leaned towards Neo-classical, closer to Stravinsky and other composers of the period.
Ravel travelled to Vienna, Stockholm and London between and to Italy, Scandinavia and the USA. It was in 1928 in the US that he composed the famous ballet Boléro while on his visit to the United States. The same year he also received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University.
From 1933 his recurring insomnia made him increasingly ill. It was thought he had a brain tumour, but an operation showed no sign of one. He died in 1937 from Pick's disease with brain damage. He died in Paris, Dec 28, 1937.
Works by Ravel
- Pavane pour une infante défunte, for piano & orchestra, 1899
- Jeux d'eau ('Fountains'), for piano, 1901
- Shéhérazade, song-cycle, 1903
- Rhapsodie espagnole, for orchestra, 1908
- Ma mere l'oye (mother Goose), 1910
- Ballet, Daphnis and Chloë, 1912
- Tzigane ('Gypsy'), for violin and orchestra, 1924
- Opera, L'Enfant et les sortileges ('The Child and the Magic Spell'), 1925
- Boléro, for Orchestra, 1928
- Piano Concerto in G, 1931
- Set of songs Don Quichotte a Dulcinée, 1932-3, written for a film on Cervantes novel
Sources:
Dictionary of Composers and their Music, by Eric Gilder, Sphere Reference (1987)
The Encyclopedia of Music, by Max Wade-Matthews & Wendy Thompson, Hermes House (2002)
The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, edited by Stanley Sadie, Macmillan (1994)
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