maurice joseph ravel

1875-1937
French composer, highly influential in 20th-century music

Born on March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées, Ravel studied (1899-1905) at the Paris Conservatoire, where his most influential teacher was the French composer Gabriel Fauré. Because of the tonal colour, harmonies, mood, and extramusical associations of much of his music, Ravel is often associated with the French impressionistic composer Claude Debussy. Unlike Debussy, however, he was strongly attracted to abstract, logical musical structures. His vivid, transparent orchestral colors rank him as one of the modern masters of orchestration.

Ravel's impressionistic leanings are uppermost in the demanding piano suites Miroirs (1905) and Gaspard de la nuit (1908) and in the Rhapsodie espagnole, for orchestra (1908). He was gifted at evoking past eras in works such as the Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899), Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911), and Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917), all for piano and later orchestrated. The shimmering, virtuosic texture of the piano piece Jeux d'Eau (Fountains, 1902) overlays a classical sonata structure. His classicism is also evident in the important String Quartet (1903), the Sonatina for piano (1905), and later chamber works such as the Sonata for Violin and Cello (1922).

Ravel's stage works include the operas L'heure espagnole (1911) and L'enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and the Enchantments, 1925; libretto by the French writer Colette); and the celebrated orchestral Boléro (1928), originally for solo dancer, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska. The evocative, impressionistic ballet Daphnis et Chloé (1912) was commissioned by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who also staged arrangements of earlier Ravel pieces such as the suite Ma Mere l'Oye (Mother Goose, 1910, for piano duet; orchestrated, 1912).

Ravel's last major work was the Piano Concerto for the left hand (1931), written for the Viennese pianist Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961), who had lost his right arm in World War I. Stricken with a neurological disorder in 1932, Ravel died in Paris on December 28, 1937.

Above right: Ravel and Igor Stravinsky