Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel was among the most significant and influential composers of the early 20th century. Although he is frequently linked with Claude Debussy as an exemplar of musical impressionism, and some of their works have a surface resemblance, Ravel possessed an independent voice that grew out of his love of a broad variety of styles, including the French Baroque, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Spanish folk traditions, and American jazz and blues. His elegant and lyrically generous body of work was not large in comparison with that of some of his contemporaries, but his compositions are notable for being meticulously and exquisitely crafted. He was especially gifted as an orchestrator, an area in which he remains unsurpassed.
Ravel's mother was of Basque heritage, a fact that accounted for his lifelong fascination with Spanish music, and his father was a Swiss inventor and engineer, most likely the source of his commitment to precision and craftsmanship. At the age of 14, he entered the Paris Conservatory, where he was a student from 1889 to 1895 and from 1897 to 1903. His primary composition teacher was Gabriel Fauré. A major disappointment of his life was his failure to win the Prix de Rome in spite of numerous attempts. The difficulty was transparently the conflict between the conservative administration of the Conservatory and Ravel's independent thinking, meaning his association with the French avant-garde (Debussy), and his interest in non-French traditions (Wagner, the Russian nationalists, Balinese gamelan). He had already established himself as a composer of prominence with works such as his String Quartet, and the piano pieces Pavane pour une infante défunte, Jeux d'eau, and the Sonatine, and his loss of the Prix de Rome in 1905 was considered such a scandal that the director of the Conservatory was forced to resign.
Ravel continued to express admiration for Debussy's music throughout his life, but as his own reputation grew stronger during the first decade of the century, a mutual professional jealousy cooled their personal relationship. Around the same time, he developed a friendship with Igor Stravinsky. The two became familiar with each other's work during Stravinsky's time in Paris and worked collaboratively on arrangements for Sergey Diaghilev.
Between 1909 and 1912, Ravel composed Daphnis et Chloé for Diaghilev and Les Ballets Russes. It was the composer's largest and most ambitious work and is widely considered his masterpiece. He wrote a second ballet for Diaghilev, La Valse, which the impresario rejected, but which went on to become one of his most popular orchestral works. Following his service in the First World War as an ambulance driver and the death of his mother in 1917, his output was temporarily diminished. In 1925, the Monte Carlo Opera presented the premiere of another large work, the "lyric fantasy" L'enfant et les sortilèges, a collaboration with writer Colette.
American jazz and blues became increasingly intriguing to the composer. In 1928 he made a hugely successful tour of North America, where he met George Gershwin and had the opportunity to broaden his exposure to jazz. Several of his most important late works, such as the Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 and the Piano Concerto in G show the influence of that interest.
Ironically, Ravel, who in his youth was rejected by some elements of the French musical establishment for being a modernist, in his later years was scorned by Satie and the members of Les Six as being old-fashioned, a symbol of the establishment. In 1932, an injury he sustained in an automobile accident started a physical decline that resulted in memory loss and an inability to communicate. He died in 1937, following brain surgery.
In spite of leaving one of the richest and most important bodies of work of any early 20th century composer, one that included virtually every genre except for symphony and liturgical music, Ravel is most often remembered for an arrangement of another composer's work, and for a piece he considered among his least significant. His orchestral arrangement of Mussorgsky's piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition has been wildly popular with concertgoers (and the royalties from it made Ravel a rich man). Boléro, a 15-minute Spanish dance in which a single theme is repeated in a variety of instrumental guises, has been ridiculed for its insistent repetitiveness, but it is also a popular favorite and one of the most familiar and frequently performed orchestral works of the 20th century.
© Stephen Eddins /TiVo
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Classical Romance with Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel, Louis Frémaux, Lorraine McAslan, Nigel Clayton, London Symphony Orchestra
Lounge - Released by PMI Collins Classics on 1 Feb 2019
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rapsodie Espagnole, Pavàne pour une infante défunte
State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR
Classical - Released by Pipeline Music on 8 Jun 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Le chant de l'âme
Bianca Favez, Vincent Thévenaz
Classical - Released by Claves Records on 15 Jun 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ravel Autumn Study Vibes
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 24 Oct 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Miroirs
Classical - Released by Audiofonic Records on 14 Oct 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Le tombeau de couperin
Classical - Released by Audiofonic Records on 14 Oct 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ravel, Los Grandes de la Clásica
Classical - Released by Piros Comercial Digital on 12 Jan 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Date Classical Music
Classical - Released by Armasi on 12 Sep 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ravel - Colorful
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 27 Feb 2021
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Pavan for a Dead Infanta for Violin & Piano
Classical - Released by Digital Music Group, Inc. on 2 Feb 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Stay at Home with Ravel
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 21 Jan 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Miroirs
Classical - Released by Digital Music Group, Inc. on 2 Feb 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Passion: Most Famous Orchestal Spectaculars - Ravel: Daphnis & Chloe - La Valse - Mother Goose
Classical - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC. on 7 Jul 2009
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Los Grandes de la Musica Clasica - Maurice Ravel Vol. 3
Classical - Released by ClassicalPirosDigital on 8 Jun 2015
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Radio Suisse Romande Présente: Rapsodie Espagnole
Orchestre National de Paris & André Cluytens
Classical - Released by Radio Suisse Romande - Septembre Musical 1954 on 14 Sep 1954
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Relax with Ravel
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 30 Jan 2021
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Opus Ravel
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 25 Jul 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Radio Suisse Romande Présente: Daphnis et Chloé: Fragments Symphoniques II - Suite Pour Orchestre No. 2
Orchestre National de Paris & Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Radio Suisse Romande - Septembre Musical 1954 on 21 Sep 1954
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Pavane pour une infante défunte
Maurice Ravel, Robert Casadesus
French Music - Released by Rooster Records on 29 Jul 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe, Kodaly: Variations on a Hungarian Folk Song & Debussy: Fantaisie for Piano & Orchestra
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Willem Mengelberg, Walter Gieseking
Classical - Released by Intermusic S.A. on 25 Jun 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J'ai déjà entendu ça quelque part (Ravel)
Classical - Released by Music Ware on 12 Aug 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo