Maurice Ravel
(1875 - 1937)

 

 

 
  7,733,376 01 Chabrier - Espana.mp3
  6,815,872 02 Ravel - Pavane pour une infante defunte.mp3
  6,029,440 03 Debussy - Clair de Lune.mp3
 15,007,872 04 Ravel - La Valse.mp3
 10,616,832 05 Ravel - Bolero (Low Fi).mp3
 18,088,064 05 Ravel - Bolero.mp3
 17,760,384 06 Ibert - Escales.mp3
[Maurice Ravel Image]

Maurice Ravel Life

 

Generally considered thegreatest French composer since Debussy, Ravel combined skill inorchestration with meticulous technical command of harmonic resources.

He was a great admirer of Debussy’s music and could hardly avoidbeing influenced by him.

He met Erik Satie who also had a considerableinfluence on his artistic development.

He eventually developed a style of his own which the critics oftendescribed as cold blooded and artificial.

In later years he based some of his finest works on the Oriental scaleshe had heard at the 1889 Paris Exhibition.

Ravel led a quiet life and never held an official post.

MauriceRavel Works

 


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Ravel wrote two operas,the first, described as a comèdie-musicale, L'heure espagnole (The Spanish Clock) and thesecond, with a libretto by Colette, the imaginative L'enfant et les sortilèges (The Childand the Enchantments), in which the naughty child is punished when furniture and animalsassume personalities of their own.

Ravel wrote his ballet Daphnis et Chloè in response to a commissionfrom the Russian impresario Dyagilev.

The work, described as a symphonie chorèographique is based on theHellenistic pastoral novel of Longus.

Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose), originally for piano duet, was orchestrated and used for a ballet, as were the Valses nobles et sentimentales and thechoreographic poem La valse.

Ravel's last ballet score was the famous "Bolèro", a work hedescribed as an orchestrated crescendo.

In addition to the scores for ballet and arrangements of piano worksfor the same purpose, Ravel wrote an evocative Rapsodie espagnole (Spanish Rhapsody).

Other orchestrations of original piano compositions include a versionof the very well known Pavane pour une infante dèfunte (Pavane for a Dead Infant), theMenuet antique, Alborada del gracioso from Miroirs and pieces from Le tombeau de Couperin.


Ravel wrote two piano concertos, the first, completed in 1930, for the left hand only,commissioned by the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm in the war, andthe second, completed in 1931, for two hands.

Songs by Ravel include the remarkable Shèhèrazade, settings of a textby Tristan Klingsor for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, and the Don Quichotte è Dulcinèe(Don Quixote to Dulcinea) songs, originally written for a film of Don Quixote in which thefamous Russian bass Chaliapin was to star.

Songs with piano include settings of the Jules Renard Histoiresnaturelles, portraying an instinctive sympathy towards the birds and the cricket.

Ravel's chamber music includes the evocative nostalgia of theIntroduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet, a violin sonatawith a jazz-style blues movement, a piano trio and a string quartet.

Tzigane, written for the Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Arànyi, is aremarkable excursion into extravagant gypsy style.

Ravel was himself a good pianist. His music for the piano includescompositions in his own nostalgic archaic style, such as the Pavane and the Menuetantique, as well as the more complex textures of pieces such as Jeux d'eau (Fountains),Miroirs and Gaspard de la nuit, with its sinister connotations.

The Sonatina is in Ravel's neo-classical style and Le tombeau de Couperin is in the form of a Baroque dance suite.