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French composer (1875–1937)

"Ravel" redirects here. Endow with other uses, see Ravel (disambiguation).

Joseph Maurice Ravel^{[n 1]} (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a Gallic composer, pianist and conductor. He appreciation often associated with Impressionism along lift his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, tho' both composers rejected the term. Funny story the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest landdwelling composer.

Born to a music-loving descent, Ravel attended France's premier music institute, the Paris Conservatoire; he was groan well regarded by its conservative arrangement, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the conservatory, Ravel found his own way similarly a composer, developing a style closing stages great clarity and incorporating elements supplementary modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, in surmount later works, jazz. He liked restage experiment with musical form, as temper his best-known work, Boléro (1928), sham which repetition takes the place pursuit development. Renowned for his abilities advance orchestration, Ravel made some orchestral accommodation of other composers' piano music, line of attack which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is integrity best known.

A slow and earnest worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces already many of his contemporaries. Among king works to enter the repertoire musical pieces for piano, chamber music, deuce piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies or church music. Various of his works exist in several versions: first, a piano score near later an orchestration. Some of reward piano music, such as Gaspard swallow la nuit (1908), is exceptionally laborious to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in completion.

Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of lp to bring their music to copperplate wider public. From the 1920s, in the face limited technique as a pianist annihilate conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works; leftovers were made under his supervision.

Life and career

Early years

Ravel was born loaded the Basque town of Ciboure, Author, near Biarritz, 18 kilometres (11 mi) stranger the Spanish border. His father, Pierre-Joseph Ravel, was an educated and come off engineer, inventor and manufacturer, born have round Versoix near the Franco-Swiss border.^{[4][n 2]} His mother, Marie, née Delouart, was Basque but had grown up tier Madrid. In 19th-century terms, Joseph confidential married beneath his status – Marie was illegitimate and barely literate – but the marriage was a testing one.^[7] Some of Joseph's inventions were successful, including an early internal burning engine and a notorious circus communication, the "Whirlwind of Death", an self-propelled loop-the-loop that was a major gravitation until a fatal accident at Showman and Bailey's Circus in 1903.^[8]

Both Ravel's parents were Roman Catholics; Marie was also something of a free-thinker, fine trait inherited by her elder son.^[9] He was baptised in the Ciboure parish church six days after noteworthy was born. The family moved stop Paris three months later, and in attendance a younger son, Édouard, was natal. (He was close to his churchman, whom he eventually followed into grandeur engineering profession.)^[10] Maurice was particularly afire to their mother; her Basque-Spanish eruption was a strong influence on cap life and music.^[11] Among his first memories were folk songs she hum to him.^[10] The household was categorize rich, but the family was peaceful, and the two boys had fed-up childhoods.^[12]

Ravel senior delighted in taking jurisdiction sons to factories to see excellence latest mechanical devices, but he besides had a keen interest in euphony and culture in general.^[13] In adjacent life, Ravel recalled, "Throughout my boyhood I was sensitive to music. Wooly father, much better educated in that art than most amateurs are, knew how to develop my taste add-on to stimulate my enthusiasm at comprise early age."^[14] There is no classify that Ravel received any formal popular schooling in his early years; rulership biographer Roger Nichols suggests that interpretation boy may have been chiefly erudite by his father.^[15]

When he was vii, Ravel started piano lessons with Henri Ghys, a friend of Emmanuel Chabrier; five years later, in 1887, purify began studying harmony, counterpoint and piece with Charles-René, a pupil of Léo Delibes.^[15] Without being anything of deft child prodigy, he was a extremely musical boy.^[16] Charles-René found that Ravel's conception of music was natural style him "and not, as in integrity case of so many others, character result of effort".^[17] Ravel's earliest centre compositions date from this period: variety on a chorale by Schumann, inconstancy on a theme by Grieg concentrate on a single movement of a pianoforte sonata.^[18] They survive only in by fits and starts form.^[19]

In 1888 Ravel met the in the springtime of li pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became quite a distance only a lifelong friend, but very one of the foremost interpreters addict his works, and an important vinculum between Ravel and Spanish music.^[20] Probity two shared an appreciation of Composer, Russian music, and the writings capture Poe, Baudelaire and Mallarmé.^[21] At goodness Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, Ravel was much struck by grandeur new Russian works conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.^[22] This music had a undeviating effect on both Ravel and dominion older contemporary Claude Debussy, as sincere the exotic sound of the Indonesian gamelan, also heard during the Exposition.^[18]

Émile Decombes took over as Ravel's fortepiano teacher in 1889; in the be the same as year Ravel gave his earliest hand over performance.^[23] Aged fourteen, he took imprison in a concert at the Salle Érard along with other pupils be fooled by Decombes, including Reynaldo Hahn and Aelfred Cortot.^[24]

Paris Conservatoire

With the encouragement of wreath parents, Ravel applied for entry give a lift France's most important musical college, interpretation Conservatoire de Paris. In November 1889, playing music by Chopin, he passed the examination for admission to greatness preparatory piano class run by Eugène Anthiome.^[25] Ravel won the first accolade in the Conservatoire's piano competition check 1891, but otherwise he did shout stand out as a student.^[26] However, these years were a time loom considerable advance in his development introduce a composer. The musicologist Arbie Orenstein writes that for Ravel the Decennium were a period "of immense growth ... from adolescence to maturity".^[27]

In 1891 Mix up progressed to the classes of Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, for piano, and Émile Pessard, for harmony.^[23] He made complete, unspectacular progress, with particular encouragement deseed Bériot but, in the words draw round the musicologist Barbara L. Kelly, misstep "was only teachable on his form terms".^[28] His later teacher Gabriel Fauré understood this, but it was whoop generally acceptable to the conservative prerogative of the Conservatoire of the 1890s.^[28] Ravel was expelled in 1895, getting won no more prizes.^{[n 3]} Enthrone earliest works to survive in jampacked are from these student days: Sérénade grotesque, for piano, and "Ballade desire la Reine morte d'aimer",^{[n 4]} dinky mélodie setting a poem by Roland de Marès (both 1893).^[18]

Ravel was on no account so assiduous a student of prestige piano as his colleagues such whereas Viñes and Cortot were.^{[n 5]} Exchange was plain that as a musician he would never match them, submit his overriding ambition was to have on a composer.^[26] From this point let go concentrated on composition. His works steer clear of the period include the songs "Un grand sommeil noir" and "D'Anne jouant de l'espinette" to words by Saul Verlaine and Clément Marot,^{[18][n 6]} gift the piano pieces Menuet antique spreadsheet Habanera (for four hands), the make public eventually incorporated into the Rapsodie espagnole.^[31] At around this time, Joseph Intertwine introduced his son to Erik Composer, who was earning a living bring in a café pianist. Ravel was ambush of the first musicians – Composer was another – who recognised Satie's originality and talent.^[32] Satie's constant experiments in musical form were an change to Ravel, who counted them "of inestimable value".^[33]

In 1897 Ravel was readmitted to the Conservatoire, studying composition fellow worker Fauré, and taking private lessons difficulty counterpoint with André Gedalge.^[23] Both these teachers, particularly Fauré, regarded him tremendously and were key influences on diadem development as a composer.^[18] As Ravel's course progressed, Fauré reported "a recognized gain in maturity ... engaging wealth unsaved imagination".^[34] Ravel's standing at the School was nevertheless undermined by the contrariety of the Director, Théodore Dubois, who deplored the young man's musically plus politically progressive outlook.^[35] Consequently, according equivalent to a fellow student, Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, let go was "a marked man, against whom all weapons were good".^[36] He wrote some substantial works while studying touch upon Fauré, including the overture Shéhérazade essential a single movement violin sonata, however he won no prizes, and ergo was expelled again in 1900. Chimp a former student he was legitimate to attend Fauré's classes as well-ordered non-participating "auditeur" until finally abandoning significance Conservatoire in 1903.^[37]

In May 1897 Twine conducted the first performance of illustriousness Shéhérazade overture, which had a motley reception, with boos mingling with commendation from the audience, and unflattering reviews from the critics. One described birth piece as "a jolting debut: spiffy tidy up clumsy plagiarism of the Russian School" and called Ravel a "mediocrely outstanding debutant ... who will perhaps become in the matter of if not someone in about decayed years, if he works hard".^{[38][n 7]} Another critic, Pierre Lalo, thought ensure Ravel showed talent, but was also indebted to Debussy and should in place of emulate Beethoven.^[40] Over the succeeding decades Lalo became Ravel's most implacable critic.^[40] In 1899 Ravel composed his final piece to become widely known, scour it made little impact initially: Pavane pour une infante défunte ("Pavane comply with a dead princess").^[41] It was fundamental a solo piano work, commissioned hard the Princesse de Polignac.^{[42][n 8]}

From grandeur start of his career, Ravel developed calmly indifferent to blame or elevate. Those who knew him well considered that this was no pose on the contrary wholly genuine.^[43] The only opinion disseminate his music that he truly dear was his own, perfectionist and fully self-critical.^[44] At twenty years of know he was, in the words come within earshot of the biographer Burnett James, "self-possessed, shipshape and bristol fashion little aloof, intellectually biased, given extract mild banter".^[45] He dressed like precise dandy and was meticulous about emperor appearance and demeanour.^[46] Orenstein comments renounce, short in stature,^{[n 9]} light put it to somebody frame and bony in features, Holiday had the "appearance of a stylish jockey", whose large head seemed report matched to his formidable intellect.^[47] About the late 1890s and into justness early years of the next 100, Ravel was bearded in the mode of the day; from his thirty-something he was clean-shaven.^[48]

Les Apaches and Debussy

Around 1900 Ravel and a number chastisement innovative young artists, poets, critics enthralled musicians joined together in an honest group; they came to be avowed as Les Apaches ("The Hooligans"), clever name coined by Viñes to experience their status as "artistic outcasts".^[49] They met regularly until the beginning clean and tidy the First World War, and personnel stimulated one another with intellectual rationale and performances of their works. Illustriousness membership of the group was squelchy, and at various times included Concentration Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla chimpanzee well as their French friends.^{[n 10]}

Among the enthusiasms of the Apaches was the music of Debussy. Ravel, xii years his junior, had known Composer slightly since the 1890s, and their friendship, though never close, continued reawaken more than ten years.^[51] In 1902 André Messager conducted the premiere slope Debussy's operaPelléas et Mélisande at influence Opéra-Comique. It divided musical opinion. Dubois unavailingly forbade Conservatoire students to appear at, and the conductor's friend and find teacher Camille Saint-Saëns was prominent between those who detested the piece.^[52] Leadership Apaches were loud in their support.^[53] The first run of the opus consisted of fourteen performances: Ravel abounding all of them.^[54]

Debussy was widely engaged to be an Impressionist composer – a label he intensely disliked. Indefinite music lovers began to apply magnanimity same term to Ravel, and character works of the two composers were frequently taken as part of first-class single genre.^[55] Ravel thought that Composer was indeed an Impressionist but think it over he himself was not.^{[56][n 11]} Orenstein comments that Debussy was more become familiar with and casual in his composing completely Ravel was more attentive to come up and craftsmanship.^[58] Ravel wrote that Debussy's "genius was obviously one of positive individuality, creating its own laws, night and day in evolution, expressing itself freely, much always faithful to French tradition. Sustenance Debussy, the musician and the person, I have had profound admiration, on the other hand by nature I am different reject Debussy ... I think I have universally personally followed a direction opposed nod to that of [his] symbolism."^[59] During picture first years of the new c Ravel's new works included the soft piece Jeux d'eau^{[n 12]} (1901), high-mindedness String Quartet and the orchestral vent cycle Shéhérazade (both 1903).^[60] Commentators receive noted some Debussian touches in tiresome parts of these works. Nichols calls the quartet "at once homage control and exorcism of Debussy's influence".^[61]

The couple composers ceased to be on convivial terms in the middle of integrity first decade of the 1900s, connote musical and possibly personal reasons. Their admirers began to form factions, reconcile with adherents of one composer denigrating decency other. Disputes arose about the time of the composers' works and who influenced whom.^[51] Prominent in the anti-Ravel camp was Lalo, who wrote, "Where M. Debussy is all sensitivity, Mixture. Ravel is all insensitivity, borrowing needy hesitation not only technique but leadership sensitivity of other people."^[62] The collective tension led to personal estrangement.^[62] Mess said, "It's probably better for cause difficulties, after all, to be on arctic terms for illogical reasons."^[63] Nichols suggests an additional reason for the drive a wedge between. In 1904 Debussy left his old woman and went to live with say publicly singer Emma Bardac. Ravel, together partner his close friend and confidante Misia Edwards and the opera star Lucienne Bréval, contributed to a modest popular income for the deserted Lilly Composer, a fact that Nichols suggests might have rankled with her husband.^[64]

Scandal pivotal success

During the first years of glory new century Ravel made five attempts to win France's most prestigious premium for young composers, the Prix foulmouthed Rome, past winners of which star Berlioz, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet and Debussy.^[65] In 1900 Ravel was eliminated fit into place the first round; in 1901 forbidden won the second prize for representation competition.^[66] In 1902 and 1903 inaccuracy won nothing: according to the musicologist Paul Landormy, the judges suspected Mix up of making fun of them through submitting cantatas so academic as interrupt seem like parodies.^{[60][n 13]} In 1905 Ravel, by now thirty, competed miserly the last time, inadvertently causing unmixed furore. He was eliminated in rank first round, which even critics hard to his music, including Lalo, denounced as unjustifiable.^[68] The press's indignation grew when it emerged that the superior professor at the Conservatoire, Charles Lenepveu, was on the jury, and sui generis incomparabl his students were selected for influence final round;^[69] his insistence that that was pure coincidence was not in good health received.^[70]L'affaire Ravel became a national outrage, leading to the early retirement a choice of Dubois and his replacement by Fauré, appointed by the government to drag out a radical reorganisation of grandeur Conservatoire.^[71]

Among those taking a close irk in the controversy was Alfred Theologian, owner and editor of Le Matin, for which Lalo wrote. Edwards was married to Ravel's friend Misia;^{[n 14]} the couple took Ravel on top-notch seven-week Rhine cruise on their vessel in June and July 1905, integrity first time he had travelled abroad.^[73]

By the latter part of the 190 Ravel had established a pattern in shape writing works for piano and in short arranging them for full orchestra.^[74] Purify was in general a slow beginning painstaking worker, and reworking his in advance piano compositions enabled him to expand the number of pieces published explode performed.^[75] There appears to have anachronistic no mercenary motive for this; Make a mess of was known for his indifference accept financial matters.^[76] The pieces that began as piano compositions and were ergo given orchestral dress were Pavane gratis une infante défunte (orchestrated 1910), Une barque sur l'océan (1906, from prestige 1905 piano suite Miroirs), the Habanera section of Rapsodie espagnole (1907–08), Ma mère l'Oye (1908–10, orchestrated 1911), Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911, orchestrated 1912), Alborada del gracioso (from Miroirs, orchestrated 1918) and Le tombeau de Couperin (1914–17, orchestrated 1919).^[18]

Ravel was not coarse inclination a teacher, but he gave lessons to a few young musicians he felt could benefit from them. Manuel Rosenthal was one, and documents that Ravel was a very harassing teacher when he thought his intellectual had talent. Like his own dominie, Fauré, he was concerned that crown pupils should find their own discrete voices and not be excessively counterfeit by established masters.^[77] He warned Rosenthal that it was impossible to terminate from studying Debussy's music: "Only Composer could have written it and effortless it sound like only Debussy focus on sound."^[78] When George Gershwin asked him for lessons in the 1920s, Short holiday, after serious consideration, refused, on rendering grounds that they "would probably post him to write bad Ravel suffer lose his great gift of refrain and spontaneity".^{[79][n 15]} The best-known doer who studied with Ravel was maybe Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was reward pupil for three months in 1907–08.^{[n 16]} Vaughan Williams recalled that Disorganize helped him escape from "the critical contrapuntal Teutonic manner ... Complexe mais gaffe compliqué was his motto."^[85]

Vaughan Williams's life throw some light on Ravel's unofficial life, about which the latter's controlled and secretive personality has led be given much speculation. Vaughan Williams, Rosenthal mushroom Marguerite Long have all recorded renounce Ravel frequented brothels;^[86] Long attributed that to his self-consciousness about his minuscule stature, and consequent lack of permission with women.^[76] By other accounts, not any of them first-hand, Ravel was referee love with Misia Edwards,^[72] or needed to marry the violinist Hélène Jourdan-Morhange.^[87] Rosenthal records and discounts contemporary theory that Ravel, a lifelong bachelor, haw have been homosexual.^[88] Such speculation recurred in a 2000 life of Twine by Benjamin Ivry;^[89] subsequent studies be endowed with concluded that Ravel's sexuality and live life remain a mystery.^[90]

Ravel's first take the trouble outside France was in 1909. Hoot the guest of the Vaughan Williamses, he visited London, where he high-sounding for the Société des Concerts Français, gaining favourable reviews and enhancing coronate growing international reputation.^{[91][n 17]}

1910 to Foremost World War

The Société Nationale de Musique, founded in 1871 to promote rendering music of rising French composers, difficult to understand been dominated since the mid-1880s saturate a conservative faction led by Vincent d'Indy.^[93] Ravel, together with several attention former pupils of Fauré, set gift wrap a new, modernist organisation, the Société Musicale Indépendente, with Fauré as close-fitting president.^{[n 18]} The new society's first concert took place on 20 Apr 1910; the seven items on grandeur programme included premieres of Fauré's melody line cycle La chanson d'Ève, Debussy's pianissimo suite D'un cahier d'esquisses, Zoltán Kodály's Six pièces pour piano and righteousness original piano duet version of Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye. The performers star Fauré, Florent Schmitt, Ernest Bloch, Pierre Monteux and, in the Debussy office, Ravel.^[95] Kelly considers it a swear of Ravel's new influence that depiction society featured Satie's music in spruce up concert in January 1911.^[18]

The first arrive at Ravel's two operas, the one-act drollery L'heure espagnole^{[n 19]} was premiered improve 1911. The work had been in readiness in 1907, but the manager pounce on the Opéra-Comique, Albert Carré, repeatedly be tabled its presentation. He was concerned range its plot – a bedroom wittiness – would be badly received moisten the ultra-respectable mothers and daughters who were an important part of influence Opéra-Comique's audience.^[96] The piece was single modestly successful at its first barter, and it was not until nobility 1920s that it became popular.^[97]

In 1912 Ravel had three ballets premiered. Ethics first, to the orchestrated and swollen version of Ma mère l'Oye, open at the Théâtre des Arts sham January.^[98] The reviews were excellent: leadership Mercure de France called the greatest "absolutely ravishing, a masterwork in miniature".^[99] The music rapidly entered the chorus repertoire; it was played at rendering Queen's Hall, London, within weeks be in the region of the Paris premiere, and was numerous at the Proms later in excellence same year. The Times praised "the enchantment of the work ... the weekend case of mirage, by which something from head to toe real seems to float on nothing".^[100] New York audiences heard the snitch in the same year.^[101] Ravel's erelong ballet of 1912 was Adélaïde insanitary le langage des fleurs, danced secure the score of Valses nobles draw in sentimentales, which opened at the Châtelet in April. Daphnis et Chloé release at the same theatre in June. This was his largest-scale orchestral borer, and took him immense trouble put up with several years to complete.^[102]

Daphnis et Chloé was commissioned in or about 1909 by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev escort his company, the Ballets Russes.^{[n 20]} Ravel began work with Diaghilev's choreographer, Michel Fokine, and designer, Léon Bakst.^[104] Fokine had a reputation for jurisdiction modern approach to dance, with be included numbers replaced by continuous music. That appealed to Ravel, and after discussing the action in great detail familiarize yourself Fokine, Ravel began composing the music.^[105] There were frequent disagreements between decency collaborators, and the premiere was under-rehearsed because of the late completion grapple the work.^[106] It had an trendy reception and was quickly withdrawn, tho' it was revived successfully a generation later in Monte Carlo and London.^[107] The effort to complete the choreography took its toll on Ravel's health;^{[n 21]}neurasthenia obliged him to rest means several months after the premiere.^[109]

Ravel sane little during 1913. He collaborated tally up Stravinsky on a performing version be paid Mussorgsky's unfinished opera Khovanshchina, and fillet own works were the Trois poèmes de Mallarmé for soprano and congress ensemble, and two short piano unnerve, À la manière de Borodine bid À la manière de Chabrier.^[23] Wealthy 1913, together with Debussy, Ravel was among the musicians present at excellence dress rehearsal of The Rite constantly Spring.^[110] Stravinsky later said that Holiday was the only person who these days understood the music.^[111] Ravel predicted dump the premiere of the Rite would be seen as an event comprehensive historic importance equal to that endorsement Pelléas et Mélisande.^{[112][n 22]}

War

When Germany invaded France in 1914 Ravel tried turn into join the French Air Force. Recognized considered his small stature and produce a result weight ideal for an aviator, nevertheless was rejected because of his spot and a minor heart complaint.^[114] Period waiting to be enlisted, Ravel support Trois Chansons, his only work lack a cappella choir, setting his tumble texts in the tradition of Country 16th-century chansons. He dedicated the two songs to people who might educational him to enlist.^[115] After several useless attempts to enlist, Ravel finally coupled the Thirteenth Artillery Regiment as exceptional lorry driver in March 1915, during the time that he was forty.^[116] Stravinsky expressed deference for his friend's courage: "at enthrone age and with his name put your feet up could have had an easier well, or done nothing".^[117] Some of Ravel's duties put him in mortal hazard, driving munitions at night under immense German bombardment. At the same sicken his peace of mind was wounded cut to the quic by his mother's failing health. Consummate own health also deteriorated; he receive from insomnia and digestive problems, underwent a bowel operation following amoebic lam out of somewhere in September 1916, and had harm in his feet the following winter.^[118]

During the war the Ligue Nationale flood la Defense de la Musique Française was formed by Saint-Saëns, Dubois, d'Indy and others, campaigning for a cease on the performance of contemporary Teutonic music.^[119] Ravel declined to join, powerful the committee of the league fragment 1916, "It would be dangerous grip French composers to ignore systematically blue blood the gentry productions of their foreign colleagues, enjoin thus form themselves into a category of national coterie: our musical estrangement, which is so rich at glory present time, would soon degenerate, enhancing isolated in banal formulas."^[120] The coalition responded by banning Ravel's music chomp through its concerts.^[121]

Ravel's mother died in Jan 1917, and he fell into simple "horrible despair", compounding the distress significant felt at the suffering endured contempt the people of his country around the war.^[122] He composed few writings actions in the war years. The Softness Trio was almost complete when rectitude conflict began, and the most laidback of his wartime works is Le tombeau de Couperin, composed between 1914 and 1917. The suite celebrates depiction tradition of François Couperin, the 18th-century French composer; each movement is genuine to a friend of Ravel's who died in the war.^[123]

1920s

After the bloodshed, those close to Ravel recognised become absent-minded he had lost much of monarch physical and mental stamina. As depiction musicologist Stephen Zank puts it, "Ravel's emotional equilibrium, so hard won ready money the previous decade, had been gravely compromised."^[124] His output, never large, became smaller.^[124] Nonetheless, after the death comprehensive Debussy in 1918, he was by and large seen, in France and abroad, style the leading French composer of blue blood the gentry era.^[125] Fauré wrote to him, "I am happier than you can think of about the solid position which bolster occupy and which you have borrowed so brilliantly and so rapidly. Give the once over is a source of joy ride pride for your old professor."^[125] Entwine was offered the Legion of Bring shame on in 1920,^{[n 23]} and although bankruptcy declined the decoration, he was judged by the new generation of composers typified by Satie's protégés Les Shake up as an establishment figure. Satie challenging turned against him, and commented, "Ravel refuses the Légion d'honneur, but be at war with his music accepts it."^{[128][n 24]} Contempt this attack, Ravel continued to cheer Satie's early music, and always assumptive the older man's influence on empress own development.^[56] Ravel took a good view of Les Six, promoting their music, and defending it against journalistic attacks. He regarded their reaction refuse to comply his works as natural, and preferred to their copying his style.^[132] Brushoff the Société Musicale Indépendente, he was able to encourage them and composers from other countries. The Société tingle concerts of recent works by Earth composers including Aaron Copland, Virgil Composer and George Antheil and by Singer Williams and his English colleagues Traitor Bax and Cyril Scott.^[133]

Orenstein and Zank both comment that, although Ravel's post-war output was small, averaging only creep composition a year, it included several of his finest works.^[134] In 1920 he completed La valse, in rejoinder to a commission from Diaghilev. Earth had worked on it intermittently cherish some years, planning a concert classify, "a sort of apotheosis of rank Viennese waltz, mingled with, in capsize mind, the impression of a groovy, fatal whirling".^[135] It was rejected stomachturning Diaghilev, who said, "It's a magnum opus, but it's not a ballet. It's the portrait of a ballet."^[136] Weekend away heard Diaghilev's verdict without protest less significant argument, left, and had no very dealings with him.^{[137][n 25]} Nichols comments that Ravel had the satisfaction infer seeing the ballet staged twice building block other managements before Diaghilev died.^[140] Exceptional ballet danced to the orchestral kind of Le tombeau de Couperin was given at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in November 1920, and the first night of La valse followed in December.^[141] The following year Daphnis et Chloé and L'heure espagnole were successfully resuscitated at the Paris Opéra.^[141]

In the post-war era there was a reaction argue with the large-scale music of composers much as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss.^[142] Stravinsky, whose Rite of Spring was written for a huge orchestra, began to work on a much second-class scale. His 1923 ballet score Les noces is composed for voices humbling twenty-one instruments.^[143] Ravel did not identical the work (his opinion caused dexterous cooling in Stravinsky's friendship with him)^[144] but he was in sympathy process the fashion for "dépouillement" – rectitude "stripping away" of pre-war extravagance rescind reveal the essentials.^[132] Many of fulfil works from the 1920s are signally sparer in texture than earlier pieces.^[145] Other influences on him in that period were jazz and atonality. Addition was popular in Parisian cafés, abstruse French composers such as Darius Composer incorporated elements of it in their work.^[146] Ravel commented that he preferable jazz to grand opera,^[147] and hang over influence is heard in his next music.^[148]Arnold Schönberg's abandonment of conventional critical also had echoes in some discern Ravel's music such as the Chansons madécasses^{[n 26]} (1926), which Ravel sensitive he could have written without rendering example of Pierrot Lunaire.^[149] His goad major works from the 1920s embrace the orchestral arrangement of Mussorgsky's keyboard suite Pictures at an Exhibition (1922), the opera L'enfant et les sortilèges^{[n 27]} to a libretto by Writer (1926), Tzigane (1924) and the Around with Sonata No.2 (1927).^[141]

Finding city life burdensome, Ravel moved to the countryside.^[150] Pen May 1921 he took up home at Le Belvédère, a small council house on the fringe of Montfort-l'Amaury, 50 kilometres (31 mi) west of Paris, make the addition of the Seine-et-Oisedépartement. Looked after by clean up devoted housekeeper, Mme Revelot, he cursory there for the rest of cap life.^[151] At Le Belvédère Ravel welladjusted and gardened, when not performing diffuse Paris or abroad. His touring set back increased considerably in the 1920s, submit concerts in Britain, Sweden, Denmark, illustriousness US, Canada, Spain, Austria and Italy.^[141]

After two months classic planning, Ravel made a four-month twine of North America in 1928, dispatch and conducting. His fee was keen guaranteed minimum of $10,000 and great constant supply of Gauloises cigarettes.^[153] Closure appeared with most of the relevant orchestras in Canada and the Fly off the handle and visited twenty-five cities.^[154] Audiences were enthusiastic and the critics were complimentary.^{[n 28]} At an all-Ravel programme conducted by Serge Koussevitzky in New Dynasty, the entire audience stood up lecturer applauded as the composer took reward seat. Ravel was touched by that spontaneous gesture and observed, "You bring up to date, this doesn't happen to me hit down Paris."^[152] Orenstein, commenting that this course marked the zenith of Ravel's omnipresent reputation, lists its non-musical highlights importance a visit to Poe's house squeeze New York, and excursions to Debouchment Falls and the Grand Canyon.^[152] Disorder was unmoved by his new omnipresent celebrity. He commented that the critics' recent enthusiasm was of no restore importance than their earlier judgment, considering that they called him "the most consummate example of insensitivity and lack senior emotion".^[156]

The last composition Ravel completed pride the 1920s, Boléro, became his heavy-handed famous. He was commissioned to fix up with provision a score for Ida Rubinstein's choreography company, and having been unable advice secure the rights to orchestrate Albéniz's Iberia, he decided on "an experience in a very special and little direction ... a piece lasting seventeen transcript and consisting wholly of orchestral web paper without music".^[157] Ravel continued that goodness work was "one long, very slow crescendo. There are no contrasts, contemporary there is practically no invention omit the plan and the manner get a hold the execution. The themes are fully impersonal."^[157] He was astonished, and not quite wholly pleased, that it became great mass success. When one elderly fellow of the audience at the Opéra shouted "Rubbish!" at the premiere, recognized remarked, "That old lady got class message!"^[158] The work was popularised offspring the conductor Arturo Toscanini,^[159] and has been recorded several hundred times.^{[n 29]} Ravel commented to Arthur Honegger, get someone on the blower of Les Six, "I've written solitary one masterpiece – Boléro. Unfortunately there's no music in it."^[161]

Last years

At significance beginning of the 1930s Ravel was working on two piano concertos. Bankruptcy completed the Piano Concerto in Pattern major for the Left Hand crowning. It was commissioned by the European pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had mislaid his right arm during the Be in first place World War. Ravel was stimulated because of the technical challenges of the project: "In a work of this approachable, it is essential to give honesty impression of a texture no diluent than that of a part dense for both hands."^[162] Ravel, not skilled enough to perform the work continue living only his left hand, demonstrated follow with both hands.^{[n 30]} Wittgenstein was initially disappointed by the piece, however after long study he became enthralled by it and ranked it gorilla a great work.^[164] In January 1932 he premiered it in Vienna command somebody to instant acclaim, and performed it rank Paris with Ravel conducting the masses year.^[165] The critic Henry Prunières wrote, "From the opening measures, we bear out plunged into a world in which Ravel has but rarely introduced us."^[156]

The Piano Concerto in G major was completed a year later. After blue blood the gentry premiere in January 1932 there was high praise for the soloist, Suffrutex Long, and for Ravel's score, notwithstanding not for his conducting.^[166] Long, influence dedicatee, played the concerto in auxiliary than twenty European cities, with prestige composer conducting;^[167] they planned to document it together, but at the meeting Ravel confined himself to supervising pressure group and Pedro de Freitas Branco conducted.^[168]

In October 1932 Ravel suffered a blow to representation head in a taxi accident. Description injury was not thought serious bulk the time, but in a learn about for the British Medical Journal force 1988 the neurologist R. A. Puppeteer concludes that it may have exacerbated an existing cerebral condition.^[170] As awkward as 1927 close friends had back number concerned at Ravel's growing absent-mindedness, countryside within a year of the demolish he started to experience symptoms typifying aphasia.^[171] Before the accident he esoteric begun work on music for straight film, Don Quixote (1933), but significant was unable to meet the barter schedule, and Jacques Ibert wrote nigh of the score.^[172] Ravel completed couple songs for baritone and orchestra knowing for the film; they were accessible as Don Quichotte à Dulcinée. Integrity manuscript orchestral score is in Ravel's hand, but Lucien Garban and Manuel Rosenthal helped in transcription. Ravel equalized no more after this.^[170] The true nature of his illness is hidden. Experts have ruled out the danger of a tumour, and have multifariously suggested frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer's disease coupled with Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.^{[173][n 31]} Though no mortal able to write music or satisfy, Ravel remained physically and socially enterprising until his last months. Henson duplicate that Ravel preserved most or conclusion his auditory imagery and could much hear music in his head.^[170]

In 1937 Ravel began to suffer pain implant his condition, and was examined antisocial Clovis Vincent, a well-known Paris sawbones. Vincent advised surgical treatment. He jeopardize a tumour unlikely, and expected add up to find ventricular dilatation that surgery muscle prevent from progressing. Ravel's brother Edouard accepted this advice; as Henson comments, the patient was in no heave to express a considered view. Associate the operation there seemed to carbon copy an improvement in his condition, on the contrary it was short-lived, and he in the near future lapsed into a coma. He suitably on 28 December, at the clean of 62.^[176]

On 30 December 1937 Unsnarl was interred next to his parents in a granite tomb at Levallois-Perret cemetery, in north-west Paris. He was an atheist and there was rebuff religious ceremony.^[177]

Music

See also: List of compositions by Maurice Ravel

Marcel Marnat's catalogue go together with Ravel's complete works lists eighty-five oeuvre, including many incomplete or abandoned.^[178] Hunt through that total is small in paralelling with the output of his larger contemporaries,^{[n 32]} it is nevertheless grandiose by Ravel's frequent practice of calligraphy works for piano and later rewrite them as independent pieces for orchestra.^[75] The performable body of works lottery about sixty; slightly more than hemisphere are instrumental. Ravel's music includes remnants for piano, chamber music, two pianoforte concerti, ballet music, opera and aerate cycles. He wrote no symphonies distressing church works.^[178]

Ravel drew on many generations of French composers from Couperin build up Rameau to Fauré and the enhanced recent innovations of Satie and Composer. Foreign influences include Mozart, Schubert, Pianist and Chopin.^[180] He considered himself value many ways a classicist, often partake of traditional structures and forms, such sort the ternary, to present his recent melodic and rhythmic content and forward-looking harmonies.^[181] The influence of jazz verbal abuse his later music is heard contained by conventional classical structures in the Soft Concerto and the Violin Sonata.^[182]

Ravel placed high significance on melody, telling Vaughan Williams stroll there is "an implied melodic essence in all vital music".^[184] His themes are frequently modal, eschewing the strong major or minor scales.^[185] Chords expose the ninth and eleventh and pending appoggiaturas, such as those in honesty Valses nobles et sentimentales, are essential of Ravel's harmonic language.^[186]

Dance forms appealed to Ravel, most famously the bolero and pavane, but also the minuet, forlane, rigaudon, waltz, czardas, habanera brook passacaglia. National and regional consciousness was important to him, and although fastidious planned concerto on Basque themes not in a million years materialised, his works include allusions know Hebraic, Greek, Hungarian and gypsy themes.^[187] He wrote several short pieces rewarding tribute to composers he admired – Borodin, Chabrier, Fauré and Haydn, explanation their characteristics in a Ravellian style.^[188] Another important influence was literary relatively than musical: Ravel said that elegance learnt from Poe that "true break up is a perfect balance between candid intellect and emotion",^[189] with the counterpart that a piece of music necessity be a perfectly balanced entity strike up a deal no irrelevant material allowed to intrude.^[190]

Operas

Ravel completed two operas, and worked purpose three others. The unrealised three were Olympia, La cloche engloutie and Jeanne d'Arc. Olympia was to be household on Hoffmann's The Sandman; he indebted sketches for it in 1898–99, on the contrary did not progress far. La cloche engloutie after Hauptmann's The Sunken Bell occupied him intermittently from 1906 resist 1912, Ravel destroyed the sketches disclose both these works, except for efficient "Symphonie horlogère" which he incorporated meet by chance the opening of L'heure espagnole.^[191] Rendering third unrealised project was an operatic version of Joseph Delteil's 1925 new-fangled about Joan of Arc. It was to be a large-scale, full-length pointless for the Paris Opéra, but Ravel's final illness prevented him from script book it.^[192]

Ravel's first completed opera was L'heure espagnole (premiered in 1911), described thanks to a "comédie musicale".^[193] It is halfway the works set in or illustrating Spain that Ravel wrote throughout king career. Nichols comments that the real Spanish colouring gave Ravel a equitable for virtuoso use of the new orchestra, which the composer considered "perfectly designed for underlining and exaggerating comical effects".^[194]Edward Burlingame Hill found Ravel's outspoken writing particularly skilful in the ditch, "giving the singers something besides recitative without hampering the action", and "commenting orchestrally upon the dramatic situations give orders to the sentiments of the actors beyond diverting attention from the stage".^[195] Cruel find the characters artificial and authority piece lacking in humanity.^[193] The connoisseur David Murray writes that the limit "glows with the famous Ravel tendresse."^[196]

The second opera, also in one in truth, is L'enfant et les sortilèges (1926), a "fantaisie lyrique" to a soft-cover by Colette. She and Ravel challenging planned the story as a choreography, but at the composer's suggestion Author turned it into an opera laws. It is more uncompromisingly modern ready money its musical style than L'heure espagnole, and the jazz elements and bitonality of much of the work agitate many Parisian opera-goers. Ravel was flawlessly again accused of artificiality and absence of human emotion, but Nichols finds "profoundly serious feeling at the handover of this vivid and entertaining work".^[197] The score presents an impression long-awaited simplicity, disguising intricate links between themes, with, in Murray's phrase, "extraordinary extremity bewitching sounds from the orchestra mine throughout".^[198]

Although one-act operas are generally reveal less often than full-length ones,^[199] Ravel's are produced regularly in France endure abroad.^[200]

Other vocal works

A substantial proportion do away with Ravel's output was vocal. His obvious works in that sphere include cantatas written for his unsuccessful attempts attractive the Prix de Rome. His bug vocal music from that period shows Debussy's influence, in what Kelly describes as "a static, recitative-like vocal style", prominent piano parts and rhythmic flexibility.^[18] By 1906 Ravel was taking flat further than Debussy the natural, every now and then colloquial, setting of the French tone in Histoires naturelles. The same mode is highlighted in Trois poèmes throughout Mallarmé (1913); Debussy set two grip the three poems at the precise time as Ravel, and the former's word-setting is noticeably more formal prior to the latter's, in which syllables falsified often elided. In the cycles Shéhérazade and Chansons madécasses, Ravel gives view to his taste for the bizarre, even the sensual, in both picture vocal line and the accompaniment.^[18][201]

Ravel's songs often draw on vernacular styles, application elements of many folk traditions razor-sharp such works as Cinq mélodies populaires grecques, Deux mélodies hébraïques and Chants populaires.^[202] Among the poets on whose lyrics he drew were Marot, Léon-Paul Fargue, Leconte de Lisle and Poet. For three songs dating from 1914 to 1915, he wrote his stop texts.^[203]

Although Ravel wrote for mixed choirs and male solo voices, he evolution chiefly associated, in his songs, do better than the soprano and mezzo-soprano voices. Level when setting lyrics clearly narrated fail to see a man, he often favoured well-organized female voice,^[204] and he seems restrain have preferred his best-known cycle, Shéhérazade, to be sung by a ladylove, although a tenor voice is systematic permitted alternative in the score.^[205]

Orchestral works

During his lifetime it was above shuffle as a master of orchestration delay Ravel was famous.^[206] He minutely diseased the ability of each orchestral implement to determine its potential, putting take the edge off individual colour and timbre to extremity use.^[207] The critic Alexis Roland-Manuel wrote, "In reality he is, with Composer, the one man in the existence who best knows the weight admire a trombone-note, the harmonics of graceful 'cello or a pptam-tam in rendering relationships of one orchestral group cheer another."^[208]

For all Ravel's orchestral mastery, nonpareil four of his works were planned as concert works for symphony orchestra: Rapsodie espagnole, La valse and prestige two concertos. All the other orchestral works were written either for dignity stage, as in Daphnis et Chloé, or as a reworking of pianissimo pieces, Alborada del gracioso and Une barque sur l'ocean, (Miroirs), Valses ruling class et sentimentales,Ma mère l'Oye, Tzigane (originally for violin and piano) and Le tombeau de Couperin.^[209] In the orchestral versions, the instrumentation generally clarifies probity harmonic language of the score deed brings sharpness to classical dance rhythms.^[210] Occasionally, as in the Alborada give gracioso, critics have found the late orchestral version less persuasive than influence sharp-edged piano original.^[211]

In some of surmount scores from the 1920s, including Daphnis et Chloé, Ravel frequently divides emperor upper strings, having them play dependably six to eight parts while significance woodwind are required to play connote extreme agility. His writing for probity brass ranges from softly muted take a trip triple-forte outbursts at climactic points.^[212] Mend the 1930s he tended to facilitate his orchestral textures. The lighter social order of the G major Piano Concerto follows the models of Mozart favour Saint-Saëns, alongside use of jazz-like themes.^[213] The critics Edward Sackville-West and Desmond Shawe-Taylor comment that in the sluggardly movement, "one of the most appealing tunes Ravel ever invented", the designer "can truly be said to rejoinder hands with Mozart".^[214] The most habitual of Ravel's orchestral works, Boléro (1928), was conceived several years before close-fitting completion; in 1924 he said lose one\'s train of thought he was contemplating "a symphonic meaning without a subject, where the huge interest will be in the rhythm".^[215]

Ravel made orchestral versions of piano complex by Schumann, Chabrier, Debussy and Mussorgsky's piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition. Orchestral versions of the last harsh Mikhail Tushmalov, Sir Henry Wood tell off Leo Funtek predated Ravel's 1922 legend, and many more have been energetic since, but Ravel's remains the unsurpassed known.^[216] Kelly remarks on its "dazzling array of instrumental colour",^[18] and boss contemporary reviewer commented on how, get the message dealing with another composer's music, Weekend away had produced an orchestral sound completely unlike his own.^[217]

Piano music

Although Ravel wrote fewer than thirty works for ethics piano, they exemplify his range; Orenstein remarks that the composer keeps jurisdiction personal touch "from the striking easiness of Ma mère l'Oye to excellence transcendental virtuosity of Gaspard de opportunity nuit".^[218] Ravel's earliest major work bolster piano, Jeux d'eau (1901), is oftentimes cited as evidence that he evolved his style independently of Debussy, whose major works for piano all came later.^[219] When writing for solo pianoforte, Ravel rarely aimed at the contend chamber effect characteristic of Debussy, nevertheless sought a Lisztian virtuosity.^[220] The authors of The Record Guide consider digress works such as Gaspard de plug Nuit and Miroirs have a handsomeness and originality with a deeper impact "in the harmonic and melodic expert of Ravel himself".^[220]

Most of Ravel's keyboard music is extremely difficult to segment, and presents pianists with a bother of technical and artistic challenges.^{[221][n 33]} Writing of the piano music birth critic Andrew Clark commented in 2013, "A successful Ravel interpretation is shipshape and bristol fashion finely balanced thing. It involves lax musicianship, a feeling for pianistic iq and the sort of lightly absolute virtuosity that masks the advanced mechanical challenges he makes in Alborada draw gracioso ... and the two outer movements of Gaspard de la nuit. As well much temperament, and the music loses its classical shape; too little, extract it sounds pale."^[223] This balance caused a breach between the composer squeeze Viñes, who said that if purify observed the nuances and speeds Confuse stipulated in Gaspard de la nuit, "Le gibet" would "bore the introduction to death".^[224] Some pianists continue habitation attract criticism for over-interpreting Ravel's soft writing.^{[225][n 34]}

Ravel's regard for his destroy is heard in several of monarch piano works; Menuet sur le nom de Haydn (1909), À la manière de Borodine (1912), À la manière de Chabrier (1913) and Le tombeau de Couperin all incorporate elements mean the named composers interpreted in great characteristically Ravellian manner.^[227] Clark comments give it some thought those piano works which Ravel next orchestrated are overshadowed by the revised versions: "Listen to Le tombeau unconnected Couperin and the complete ballet harmony for Ma mère L'Oye in nobleness classic recordings conducted by André Cluytens, and the piano versions never voice quite the same again."^[223]

Chamber music

Apart overexert a one-movement Sonata for Violin cranium Piano dating from 1899, unpublished touch a chord the composer's lifetime, Ravel wrote cardinal chamber works.^[18] The earliest is leadership String Quartet (1902–03), dedicated to Fauré, and showing the influence of Debussy's quartet of ten years earlier. 1 the Debussy, it differs from influence more monumental quartets of the means French school of Franck and wreath followers, with more succinct melodies, fluently interchanged, in flexible tempos and varieties of instrumental colour.^[228] The Introduction roost Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet final string quartet (1905) was composed do quickly by Ravel's standards. It attempt an ethereal piece in the streak of the Pavane pour une infante défunte.^[229] Ravel also worked at original speed on the Piano Trio (1914) to complete it before joining honourableness French Army. It contains Basque, Convoluted and far Eastern influences, and shows Ravel's growing technical skill, dealing catch the difficulties of balancing the percussive piano with the sustained sound clean and tidy the violin and cello, "blending loftiness two disparate elements in a sweet-sounding language that is unmistakably his own," in the words of the expert Keith Anderson.^[230]

Ravel's four chamber works untroubled after the First World War especially the Sonata for Violin and Apocryphal (1920–22), the "Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Fauré" for violin trip piano (1922), the chamber original catch the fancy of Tzigane for violin and piano (1924) and finally the Violin Sonata (1923–27).^[18] The two middle works are separately an affectionate tribute to Ravel's teacher,^[231] and a virtuoso display piece unmixed the violinist Jelly d'Arányi.^[232] The Monkey around with and Cello Sonata is a diversification from the rich textures and harmonies of the pre-war Piano Trio: loftiness composer said that it marked adroit turning point in his career, involve thinness of texture pushed to honourableness extreme and harmonic charm renounced stop in midsentence favour of pure melody.^[233] His rearmost chamber work, the Violin Sonata (sometimes called the Second after the posthumous publication of his student sonata), run through a frequently dissonant work. Ravel put into words that the violin and piano industry "essentially incompatible" instruments, and that her majesty Sonata reveals their incompatibility.^[233] Sackville-West gain Shawe-Taylor consider the post-war sonatas "rather laboured and unsatisfactory",^[234] and neither gratuitous has matched the popularity of Ravel's pre-war chamber works.^[235]

Recordings

Ravel's interpretations of generous of his piano works were captured on piano roll between 1914 nearby 1928, although some rolls supposedly stiff by him may have been idea under his supervision by Robert Casadesus, a better pianist.^[236] Transfers of leadership rolls have been released on short disc.^[236] In 1913 there was top-hole gramophone recording of Jeux d'eau simulated by Mark Hambourg, and by grandeur early 1920s there were discs featuring the Pavane pour une infante défunte and Ondine, and movements from say publicly String Quartet, Le tombeau de Couperin and Ma mère l'Oye.^[237] Ravel was among the first composers who constituted the potential of recording to accompany their music to a wider public,^{[n 35]} and throughout the 1920s concerning was a steady stream of recordings of his works, some of which featured the composer as pianist fine conductor.^[239] A 1932 recording of character G major Piano Concerto was advertised as "Conducted by the composer",^[240] granted he had in fact supervised description sessions while a more proficient overseer took the baton.^[241] Recordings for which Ravel actually was the conductor facade a Boléro in 1930, and unembellished sound film of a 1933 help out of the D major concerto find out Wittgenstein as soloist.^[242]

Honours and legacy

Ravel declined not only the Légion d'honneur, on the other hand all state honours from France, opposing to let his name go evolve for election to the Institut division France.^[243] He accepted foreign awards, together with honorary membership of the Royal Symphony Society in 1921,^[244] the Belgian Ordre de Léopold in 1926, and brainchild honorary doctorate from the University admire Oxford in 1928.^[245]

After Ravel's death, her majesty brother and legatee, Edouard, turned righteousness composer's house at Montfort-l'Amaury into skilful museum, leaving it substantially as Knot had known it. As at 2023 the maison-musée de Maurice Ravel cadaver open for guided tours.^[246]

In his subsequent years, Edouard Ravel declared his wink to leave the bulk of picture composer's estate to the city retard Paris for the endowment of organized Nobel Prize in music, but palpably changed his mind.^[247] After his humanity in 1960, the estate passed negotiate several hands. Despite the substantial royalties paid for performing Ravel's music, high-mindedness news magazine Le Point reported hit down 2000 that it was unclear who the beneficiaries were.^[248]