__NOTOC__ Year 1875 (MDCCCLXXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

January 1 – Midland Railway abolishes Second Class passenger facilities, leaving First Class and Third Class. Other British Railway companies follow Midland's lead during the rest of the year (Third Class is renamed Second Class in 1956).

January 12 – Kwang-su becomes emperor of China.

February 21 – Birth of Jeanne Calment, the longest-lived person in recorded history, in Arles, France. She died on 4 August 1997.

February 24 – The ''SS Gothenburg'' sinks off the Australian east coast with the loss of approximately 102 lives, including a number of high profile civil servants and dignitaries.

February 25 – The majority of the Yavapai (Wipukyipai) and Tonto Apache (Dil Zhéé) tribes are forced by the U.S. Cavalry under command of Brigadier General George Crook to walk at gunpoint from the Arizona's Verde Valley, to the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, 180 miles to the southeast. The two tribes are not allowed to return to the Verde Valley until 1900.

February 27 – Newton Booth, 11th Governor of California, resigns, having been elected Senator. Lieutenant Governor of California Romualdo Pacheco becomes acting Governor. He is later replaced by elected governor William Irwin.

March 1 – The United States Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in public accommodations and jury duty.

March 3 – Bizet’s ''Carmen'' is first performed at the Opéra Comique, Paris.

March 3 – The first organized indoor game of ice hockey is played between two teams at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, Canada.

April–June

April 10 – The Arya Samaj is founded in Mumbai by Swami Dayananda.

April 25 – Ten sophomores from Rutgers College (now Rutgers University) steal a one-ton cannon from the campus of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and start the Rutgers-Princeton Cannon War.

May 7 – The Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875) is signed between Japan and Russia.

May 7 – The S.S. ''Schiller'' wrecks on the rocks off the Isles of Scilly.

May 17 – Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.

May 20 – The Metre Convention is signed in Paris.

June – The record-setting clipper ''Flying Cloud'' is burned for scrap metal.

June 4 – Two American colleges play each other in arguably the first game of College Football : Tufts University and Harvard University at Jarvis Field in Cambridge, Mass..

July–September

July 1 – General Postal Union established.

August 25 – Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel.

September 1 – A murder conviction effectively forces the violent Irish anti-owner coal miners, the "Molly Maguires", to disband.

September 7 – Battle of Agurdat: An Egyptian invasion of Ethiopia fails when Emperor Yohannes IV defeats an army led by Werner Munzinger.

October–December

October 15 – Chief Lone Horn of the Minneconjou dies at the Cheyenne River, leaving his son Big Foot as the new chief.

October 16 – Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.

October 25 – The first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is given in Boston, Massachusetts with Hans von Bülow as soloist.

October 30 – The Theosophical Society is founded in New York by Helena Blavatsky, H. S. Olcott, W. Q. Judge, and others.

November 9 – Indian Wars: In Washington, D.C., Indian Inspector E.C. Watkins issues a report stating that hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne associated with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are hostile to the United States (the Battle of the Little Bighorn is fought in Montana the next year).

November 16 – Battle of Gundat: Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes defeats another Egyptian army.

December 4 – Notorious New York City politician Boss Tweed escapes from prison and flees to Cuba, then to Spain.

December 9 – The Massachusetts Rifle Association, "America's Oldest Active Gun Club", is formed.

December 20 – ICRM renamed International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

December 25 – The first Edinburgh derby is played: The Hearts win 1–0 against the Hibs.

Date unknown

Asia's first stock exchange was established. "The Native Share & Stock Brokers Association" now called as the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Wimbledon: Henry Cavendish Jones convinces the "All England Croquet Club" to replace a croquet court with a lawn tennis court.

The Tong wars begin in San Francisco.

The Hibernian F.C. is founded in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland.

The Birmingham City F.C. is founded, as Small Heath Alliance, in Small Heath, Birmingham, England.

The Artisan's and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875 is passed.

The Ottoman state declares partial bankruptcy and places its finances in the hands of European creditors.

Widespread nationalist rebellion in the Ottoman Empire has resulted in Turkish repression, Russian intervention and Great Power tensions.

Convent Scandal: During the winter in Montreal, typhoid fever strikes at a convent school. The corpses of the victims are filched by body-snatchers before relatives arrive from America, causing much furor. Eventually the Anatomy Act of Quebec is changed over it.

The opening of Flushing High School.

Births

January–June

January 5 – James Stuart Blackton, American film producer (d. 1941)

January 7 – Thomas Hicks, American runner (d. 1963)

January 9 – Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, American sculptor and socialite (d. 1942)

January 11 – Reinhold Glière, Russian composer (d. 1956)

January 14 – Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian physician, philosopher, and musician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1965)

January 15 – Thomas Burke, American sprinter (d. 1929)

January 22 – D. W. Griffith, American film director (''The Birth Of A Nation'') (d. 1948)

February 2

* Fritz Kreisler, Austrian violinist (d. 1962)

* Erkki Melartin, Finnish composer (d. 1937)

February 4 – Ludwig Prandtl, German physicist (d. 1953)

February 8 – Valentine O'Hara, Irish author and authority on Russia and the Baltic States (d. 1945)

February 21 – Jeanne Calment, World's Longest Lived Person (d. 1997)

March 4 – Mihály Károlyi, former Prime Minister of Hungary and President of Hungary (d. 1955)

March 7 – Maurice Ravel, French composer (d. 1937)

March 26 – Syngman Rhee, President of South Korea (d. 1965)

March 28 – Helen Westley, stage & film character actress (d. 1942)

March 30 – Jonathan Campbell, American film pioneer (d. 1942)

April 1 – Edgar Wallace, English writer (d. 1932)

April 2 – Walter Chrysler, American automobile pioneer (d. 1940)

April 4

* Samuel S. Hinds, American actor (d. 1948)

* Pierre Monteux, French conductor (d. 1964)

April 5 – Mistinguett, French singer (d. 1956)

April 8 – King Albert I of Belgium (d. 1934)

April 15 – James J. Jeffries, American boxer (d. 1953)

April 18 – Oskar Ernst Bernhardt (''Abdruschin''), German author (d. 1941)

May 2 – George Ranetti (Romanian poet and publicist, d. 1928)

May 11 – Harriet Quimby, American pilot (d. 1912)

May 12 – Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya, Indian philosopher (d. 1949)

May 23 – Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr., American automobile industrialist (d. 1966)

June 6 – Thomas Mann, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955)

June 12 – Sam De Grasse, Canadian actor (d. 1953)

June 24 – Diedrich Westermann, German linguist (d. 1956)

June 28 – Henri Lebesgue, French mathematician (d. 1941)

July–December

July 7 – Vincent Tancred, South African cricketer (d. 1904)

July 26

* Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist (d. 1961)

* Antonio Machado, Spanish poet (d. 1939)

August 15 – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, English composer (d. 1912)

August 16 – Juho Sunila, Prime Minister of Finland (d. 1936)

August 21 – Winnifred Eaton, Canadian author (d. 1954)

August 27 – Katharine McCormick, American suffragist (d. 1967)

September 1 – Edgar Rice Burroughs, American author (d. 1950)

September 3 – Ferdinand Porsche, Austrian automotive engineer (d. 1951)

September 18

* Tomas Burgos, Chilean philanthropist (d.1945)

* Arthur Henry Knighton-Hammond, British water-colourist (d.1970)

September 22 – Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, Lithuanian composer (d.1911)

October 1 – Eugeen Van Mieghem, Belgian painter (d. 1930)

October 12 – Aleister Crowley, British occultist (d. 1947)

October 23 – Gilbert N. Lewis, American chemist (d. 1946)

October 26 – H.B. Warner, English stage & screen actor (d. 1958)

October 31 – Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Indian political leader (''Iron Man of India'') (d.1950)

November 14 – Gregorio del Pilar, Filipino general (d. 1899)

December 4 – Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian poet (d. 1926)

December 5 – Arthur Currie, Canadian military leader (d. 1933)

December 11 – Yehuda Leib Maimon, Bassarabian-born Israeli rabbi and government minister (d. 1962)

December 15 – Emilio Jacinto, Filipino poet and revolutionary (d. 1899)

December 19 – Mileva Maric, Albert Einstein's first wife (d. 1948)

December 25 – Theodor Innitzer, Austrian Catholic cardinal (d. 1955)

Deaths

January–June

January 20 – Jean-François Millet, French painter (b. 1814)

January 23 – Charles Kingsley, English writer (b. 1819)

February 22 – Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, French painter (b. 1796)

February 22 – Sir Charles Lyell, British geologist (b. 1797)

March 1 – Tristan Corbière, French poet (b. 1845)

April 25 – the 12th Dalai Lama (b. 1857)

May 17 – John C. Breckinridge, Vice President of the United States (b. 1821)

May 31 – Eliphas Lévi, French occult author and magician (b. 1810)

June 2 – Józef Kremer, Polish messianistic philosopher (b. 1806)

June 3 – Georges Bizet, French composer (b. 1836)

June 4 – Eduard Mörike, German poet (b. 1804)

June 25 – Antoine-Louis Barye, French sculptor (b. 1796)

July–December

July 30 – George Pickett, American Confederate General (b. 1825)

July 31 – Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States (b. 1808)

August 4 – Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer (b. 1805)

August 6 – Gabriel Garcia Moreno, former President of Ecuador (b. 1821)

August 10 – Karl Andree, German geographer (b. 1808)

August 12 – János Kardos, Hungarian Slovenes evangelic priest, teacher and writer (b. 1801)

August 17 – Wilhelm Bleek, German linguist (b. 1827)

September 22 – Charles Bianconi, Italian-Irish entrepreneur (b. 1786)

October 10 – Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Russian writer (b. 1817)

October 15 – Chief Lone Horn, Native American Chief (b.1790)

October 12 – Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, French sculptor and painter (b. 1827)

October 24 – Jacques Paul Migne, French priest, theologian, and publisher (b. 1800)

November 7 – Werner Munzinger, Swiss adventurer (b. 1832)

November 22 – Henry Wilson, 18th Vice President of the United States (b. 1812)

November 24 – William Backhouse Astor, Sr., American businessman (b. 1792)

December 25 – Young Tom Morris, Scottish golfer (b. 1851)

References

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Jackson Haines (1840–1875) was an American ballet dancer and figure skater who is regarded as the father of modern figure skating.

Born in New York City, Haines claimed to be national champion in 1864. However, many such "championships" were held during those years, and none were sanctioned by a unifying figure skating organization. (The United States Figure Skating Association was not established until 1921.)

At this time, figure skating was performed in the "English style", which was rigid and formal. It was virtually nothing like what is performed today. Haines' style was a complete contrast to the English style; he used his ballet background to create graceful programs, and introduced accompanying music (a new concept at the time). He also screwed his figure skates directly onto his boots, which added stability and allowed him to do more athletic leaps and jumps. The typical practice of the time was to strap the blades onto the boot.

Haines' style was not well received in the United States. He therefore went to Europe to display and teach his style, which became known as the "International style". He lived in Vienna for a time, where his skating style became very popular.

Haines died of tuberculosis in Gamlakarleby (nowadays in Finnish: Kokkola, in Swedish: Karleby), Finland in 1875. His style did not become popular in the United States until many years after his death. The first American figure skating championships in the "International Style" were held on March 20, 1914, in New Haven, Connecticut.

Haines was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame and the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1976.

Haines was the inventor of the sit spin, one of the three basic spin types. (The other two are the upright spin, about as old as the art of ice skating itself; and the camel spin, invented during the twentieth century by Cecilia Colledge.)

See also

List of persons considered father or mother of a field

References

External links

Haines at outsports.com

www.stockholmskallan.se has formerly unknown media about Jackson Haines

Category:1840 births Category:1875 deaths Category:American male single skaters Category:People from New York City

de:Jackson Haines fi:Jackson Haines

name	Maurice Ravel
birth name	Joseph Maurice Ravel
birth date	March 07, 1875
birth place	Ciboure, France
death date	December 28, 1937
death place	Paris
resting place	Levallois-Perret
nationality	French
occupation	Composer
partner	None
relatives	Marie Delouart, Joseph Ravel }}

Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875December 28, 1937) was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects. Much of his piano music, chamber music, vocal music and orchestral music has entered the standard concert repertoire.

Ravel's piano compositions, such as ''Jeux d'eau'', ''Miroirs'', ''Le tombeau de Couperin'' and ''Gaspard de la nuit'', demand considerable virtuosity from the performer, and his orchestral music, including ''Daphnis et Chloé'' and his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's ''Pictures at an Exhibition'', uses a variety of sound and instrumentation.

Ravel is perhaps known best for his orchestral work ''Boléro'' (1928), which he considered trivial and once described as "a piece for orchestra without music."

According to SACEM, Ravel's estate earns more royalties than that of any other French composer. According to international copyright law, Ravel's works have been in the public domain since January 1, 2008, in most countries. In France, due to anomalous copyright law extensions to account for the two world wars, they will not enter the public domain until 2015.

Biography

Early life

Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure, France, near Biarritz, close to the border with Spain, in 1875. His mother, Marie Delouart, was of Basque descent and grew up in Madrid, Spain, while his father, Joseph Ravel, was a Swiss inventor and industrialist from French Haute-Savoie. Both were Catholics and they provided a happy and stimulating household for their children. Some of Joseph's inventions were quite important, including an early internal-combustion engine and a notorious circus machine, the "Whirlwind of Death," an automotive loop-the-loop that was quite a success until a fatal accident at the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1903. Joseph delighted in taking his sons to factories to see the latest mechanical devices, and he also had a keen interest in music and culture. Ravel substantiated his father's early influence by stating later, “As a child, I was sensitive to music—- to every kind of music.”

Ravel was very fond of his mother, and her Basque heritage was a strong influence on his life and music. Among his earliest memories are folk songs she sang to him. The family moved to Paris three months after the birth of Maurice, and there his younger brother Édouard was born. Édouard became his father’s favorite and also became an engineer.

Though obviously talented at the piano, Ravel demonstrated a preference for composing. He was particularly impressed by the new Russian works conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the Exposition Universelle in 1889. The foreign music at the exhibition also had a great influence on Ravel’s contemporaries Erik Satie, Emmanuel Chabrier, and most significantly Claude Debussy. That year Ravel also met Ricardo Viñes, who would become one of his best friends, one of the foremost interpreters of his piano music, and an important link between Ravel and Spanish music. The students shared an appreciation for Richard Wagner, the Russian school, and the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and Stéphane Mallarmé.

The Conservatoire and early career

Ravel’s parents encouraged his musical pursuits and sent him to the Conservatoire de Paris, first as a preparatory student and eventually as a piano major. His teachers included Émile Descombes. He received a first prize in the piano student competition in 1891. Overall, however, he was not successful academically even as his musicianship matured dramatically. Considered “very gifted”, Ravel was also called “somewhat heedless” in his studies. He dressed like a dandy and was meticulous about his appearance and demeanor. Short in stature, light in frame, and bony in features, Ravel had the "appearance of a well-dressed jockey". His large head seemed suitably matched to his great intellect. He was well-read and later accumulated a library of over 1,000 volumes.

After failing to meet the requirement of earning a competitive medal in three consecutive years, Ravel was expelled during 1895. He turned down a music professorship in Tunisia then returned to the Conservatoire in 1898 and started his studies with Gabriel Fauré, determined to focus on composing rather than piano playing. He studied composition with Fauré until he was dismissed from the class in 1900 for having won neither the fugue nor the composition prize. He remained an auditor with Fauré until he left the Conservatoire in 1903. Ravel found his teacher’s personality and methods sympathetic and they remained friends and colleagues. He also undertook private studies with André Gedalge, whom he later stated was responsible for "the most valuable elements of my technique." Ravel studied the ability of each instrument carefully in order to determine the possible effects, and was sensitive to their color and timbre. This may account for his success as an orchestrator and as a transcriber of his own piano works and those of other composers, such as Mussorgsky, Debussy and Schumann.

His first significant work, ''Habanera'' for two pianos, was later transcribed into the well-known third movement of his ''Rapsodie espagnole'', which he dedicated to Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, another of his professors at the Conservatoire. His first published work was ''Menuet antique'', dedicated to and premiered by Viñes. In 1899, Ravel conducted his first orchestral piece, ''Shéhérazade'', and was greeted by a raucous mixture of boos and applause. The critics were somewhat unfavorable, ''e.g.'' reviling him as "a jolting debut: a clumsy plagiarism of the Russian School" and terming him a “mediocrely gifted debutante ... who will perhaps become something if not someone in about ten years, if he works hard.” As the most gifted composer of his class and as a leader, with Debussy, of avant-garde French music, Ravel would continue to have a difficult time with the critics for some time to come. Around 1900, Ravel joined with a number of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians who were referred to as the ''Apaches'' (hooligans), a name coined by Viñes to represent his band of "artistic outcasts". The group met regularly until the beginning of World War I and the members often inspired each other with intellectual argument and performances of their works before the group. For a time, the influential group included Igor Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla. One of the first works Ravel performed for the Apaches was ''Jeux d'eau'', his first piano masterpiece and clearly a pathfinding impressionistic work. Viñes performed the public premiere of this piece and Ravel's other early masterpiece ''Pavane pour une infante défunte'' during 1902.

During his years at the Conservatoire, Ravel tried numerous times to win the prestigious Prix de Rome, but to no avail; he was probably considered too radical by the conservatives, including Director Théodore Dubois. One of Ravel's pieces, the String Quartet in F, probably modeled on Debussy’s Quartet (1893), is now a standard work of chamber music, though at the time it was criticized and found lacking academically. After a scandal involving his loss of the prize during 1905 to Victor Gallois, despite being favored to win, Ravel left the Conservatoire. The incident – named the "Ravel Affair" by the Parisian press – engaged the entire artistic community, pitting conservatives against the avant-garde, and eventually caused the resignation of Dubois and his replacement by Fauré, a vindication of sorts for Ravel. Though deprived of the opportunity to study in Rome, the decade after the scandal proved to be Ravel's most productive, and included his "Spanish period".

Ravel and Debussy

Ravel met Debussy during the 1890s. Debussy was older than Ravel by some twelve years and his pioneering ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' was influential among the younger musicians including Ravel, who were impressed by the new language of impressionism. During 1900, Ravel was invited to Debussy’s home and they played each other’s works. Viñes became the preferred piano performer for both composers and a go-between. The two composers attended many of the same musical events and were performed at the same concerts. Ravel and the Apaches were strong supporters of Debussy’s controversial public debut of his unconventional opera ''Pelléas et Mélisande'', which garnered Debussy both fame and scorn. Even though they worked independently of one another, because they employed differing means to similar ends, and because superficial similarities and even some more substantive ones are evident, the public and the critics associated them more than the facts warranted.

Ravel wrote that Debussy’s “genius was obviously one of great individuality, creating its own laws, constantly in evolution, expressing itself freely, yet always faithful to French tradition. For Debussy, the musician and the man, I have had profound admiration, but by nature I am different from Debussy.” Ravel further stated, “I think I have always personally followed a direction opposed to that of the symbolism of Debussy.” As Ravel said, “It is probably better after all for us to be on frigid terms for illogical reasons.”

Early major works

The next of Ravel’s piano compositions to become famous was ''Miroirs'' (Mirrors, 1905), five piano pieces which marked a “harmonic evolution” and which one commentator described as “intensely descriptive and pictorial. They banish all sentiment in expression but offer to the listener a number of refined sensory elements which can be appreciated according to his imagination.” Next was his ''Histoires naturelles'' (Nature Stories), five humorous songs evoking the presence of five animals. Two years later, Ravel completed his ''Rapsodie espagnole'', his first major "Spanish" piece, written first for piano four hands and then scored for orchestra. Though it employs folk-like melodies, no actual folk songs are quoted. It premiered during 1908 to generally good reviews, with one critic stating that it was "one of the most interesting novelties of the season", while Pierre Lalo (as usual) reacted negatively, calling it "laborious and pedantic". Next followed Ravel's music for the opera ''L'heure espagnole'' (The Spanish Hour), full of humor and rich in color, employing a wide variety of instruments and their characteristic qualities, including the trombone, sarrusophone, tuba, celesta, xylophone, and bells. The libretto was by Franc-Nohain, after his own comedy of the same name.

Ravel further extended his mastery of impressionistic piano music with ''Gaspard de la nuit'', based on a collection by the same name by Aloysius Bertrand, with some influence from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, particularly in the second part. Viñes, as usual, performed the premiere but his performance displeased Ravel, and their relationship became strained from then on. For future premieres, Ravel replaced Viñes with Marguerite Long. Also unhappy with the conservative musical establishment which was discouraging performance of new music, around this time Ravel, Fauré, and some of his pupils formed the Société musicale indépendante (SMI). During 1910, the society presented the premiere of Ravel’s ''Ma mère l'oye'' (Mother Goose) in its original piano duet version. With this work, Ravel followed in the tradition of Schumann, Mussorgsky, and Debussy, who also created memorable works of childhood themes. During 1912, Ravel's ''Ma mère l'oye'' was performed as a ballet (with added music) after being first transcribed from piano to orchestra. Looking to expand his contacts and career, Ravel made his first foreign tours to England and Scotland during 1909 and 1911.

''Daphnis et Chloé''

Ravel began work with impresario Sergei Diaghilev during 1909 for the ballet ''Daphnis et Chloé'' commissioned by Diaghilev with the lead danced by the famous ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilev had taken Paris by storm the previous year in his Parisian opera debut, ''Boris Godunov''. In frustration, Diaghilev nearly cancelled the project. The ballet had an unenthusiastic reception and lasted only two performances, only to be revived to acclaim a year later. Igor Stravinsky called ''Daphnis et Chloé'' "one of the most beautiful products of all French music" and author Burnett James claims that it is "Ravel's most impressive single achievement, as it is his most opulent and confident orchestral score". The work is notable for its rhythmic diversity, lyricism, and evocations of nature. The score utilizes a large orchestra and two choruses, one onstage and one offstage. So exhausting was the effort to score the ballet that Ravel's health deteriorated, with a diagnosis of neurasthenia soon forcing him to rest for several months. During 1914, just as World War I began, Ravel composed his Piano Trio (for piano, violin, and cello) with its Basque themes. The piece, difficult to play well, is considered a masterpiece among trio works.

War years

Although he considered his small stature and light weight an advantage to becoming an aviator, and he tried every means of securing service as a flyer, during the First World War Ravel was not allowed to enlist as a pilot because of his age and weak health. Instead, he became a truck driver stationed at the Verdun front. At one point Ravel's unit engaged a German unit that included a young Adolf Hitler. With his mother’s death during 1917, his fondest relationship ended and he began a “horrible despair”, adding to his ill health and the general gloom over the suffering endured by the people of his country during the war. However, during the war years, Ravel did manage some compositions, including one of his most popular works, ''Le tombeau de Couperin'', a commemoration of the musical ideals of François Couperin, the early 18th century composer, which premiered during 1919. Each movement is dedicated to a friend of Ravel's who died in the war, with the final movement dedicated to the deceased husband of Ravel’s favorite pianist Marguerite Long.

1920s

Around 1920, Diaghilev commissioned Ravel to write ''La valse'' (The Waltz), originally named ''Wien'' (Vienna), which was to be used for a projected ballet. The piece, conceived many years earlier, became a waltz with a macabre undertone, famous for its “fantastic and fatal whirling”. However, it was rejected by Diaghilev as “not a ballet. It’s a portrait of ballet”. Ravel, hurt by the comment, ended the relationship. Subsequently, it became a popular concert work and when the two men met again during 1925, Ravel refused to shake Diaghilev's hand. Diaghilev challenged Ravel to a duel, but friends persuaded Diaghilev to recant. The two never met again.

During 1920, the French government awarded Ravel the Légion d'honneur, but he refused it. The next year, he retired to the French countryside where he continued to write music, albeit even less prolifically, but in more tranquil surroundings. He returned regularly to Paris for performances and socializing, and increased his foreign concert tours. Ravel maintained his influential participation with the SMI which continued its active role of promoting new music, particularly of British and American composers such as Arnold Bax, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Aaron Copland, and Virgil Thomson. With Debussy’s death, Ravel became perceived popularly as the main composer of French classical music. As Fauré stated in a letter to Ravel in October 1922, “I am happier than you can imagine about the solid position which you occupy and which you have acquired so brilliantly and so rapidly. It is a source of joy and pride for your old professor.” During 1922, Ravel completed his ''Sonata for Violin and Cello''. Dedicated to Debussy’s memory, the work features the thinner texture popular with the younger postwar composers. Ravel was fully aware of this, and was mostly effective in preventing a serious breach between his generation of musicians and the younger group. These trends posed challenges for Ravel, always a slow and deliberate composer, who desired to keep his music relevant but still revered the past. This may have played a part in his declining output and longer composing time during the 1920s. Around this time, he also completed ''Chansons madécasses'', the summit of his vocal art.

During 1927, Ravel’s String Quartet received its first complete recording. By this time Ravel, like Edward Elgar, had become convinced of the importance of recording his works, especially with his input and direction. He made recordings nearly every year from then until his death. That same year, he completed and premiered his Sonata for Violin and Piano, his last chamber work, with its second movement (titled “Blues”) gaining much attention.

Ravel also served as a juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal, a grant given between 1919 and 1954 to young French painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers, and musicians.

American tour

After two months of planning, during 1928 Ravel made a four-month concert tour in North America, for a promised minimum of $10,000 The noted critic Olin Downes wrote, “Mr. Ravel has pursued his way as an artist quietly and very well. He has disdained superficial or meretricious effects. He has been his own most unsparing critic.” Ravel conducted most of the leading orchestras in the U.S. from coast to coast and visited twenty-five cities.

He also met the American composer George Gershwin in New York and went with him to hear jazz in Harlem, probably hearing some of the famous jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington. There is a story that when Gershwin met Ravel, he mentioned that he would like to study with the French composer. According to Gershwin, the Frenchman retorted, "Why do you want to become a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?" The second part of the story has Ravel asking Gershwin how much money he made. Upon hearing Gershwin's reply, Ravel suggested that maybe ''he'' should study with Gershwin. This tale may well be apocryphal: Gershwin seems also to have told a near-identical story about a conversation with Arnold Schoenberg, and some have claimed it was with Igor Stravinsky. (See George Gershwin.) In any event, this had to have been before Ravel wrote ''Boléro'', which became financially very successful for him.

Ravel then visited New Orleans and imbibed the jazz scene there as well. His admiration of jazz, increased by his American visit, caused him to include some jazz elements in a few of his later compositions, especially the two piano concertos. The great success of his American tour made Ravel famous internationally.

Final years

After returning to France, Ravel composed his most famous and controversial orchestral work ''Boléro'', originally called ''Fandango''. Ravel called it “an experiment in a very special and limited direction”. He stated his idea for the piece, “I am going to try to repeat it a number of times on different orchestral levels but without any development.” He conceived of it as an accompaniment to a ballet and not as an orchestral piece as, in his own opinion, “it has no music in it”, and was somewhat taken aback by its popular success. Ravel made one of the few recordings of his own music when he conducted his ''Boléro'' with the Lamoureux Orchestra in 1930.

Remarkably, Ravel composed both of his piano concertos simultaneously. He completed the Concerto for the Left Hand first. The work was commissioned by Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm during World War I. Ravel was inspired by the technical challenges of the project. As Ravel stated, “In a work of this kind, it is essential to give the impression of a texture no thinner than that of a part written for both hands.” At the premiere of the work, Ravel, not proficient enough to perform the work with only his left hand, played two-handed and Wittgenstein was reportedly underwhelmed by it. But later Wittgenstein stated, “Only much later, after I’d studied the concerto for months, did I become fascinated by it and realized what a great work it was.” In 1933, Wittgenstein played the work in concert for the first time to instant acclaim. Critic Henry Prunières wrote, “From the opening measures, we are plunged into a world in which Ravel has but rarely introduced us.” Ravel dedicated the work to his favorite pianist, Marguerite Long, who played it and popularized it across Europe in over twenty cities, and they recorded it together during 1932. EMI later reissued the 1932 recording on LP and CD. Although Ravel was listed as the conductor on the original 78-rpm discs, it is possible he merely supervised the recording.

Ravel, ever modest, was bemused by the critics' sudden favor of him since his American tour, “Didn’t I represent to the critics for a long time the most perfect example of insensitivity and lack of emotion?... And the successes they have given me in the past few years are just as unimportant.” However, afterwards he began to experience aphasia-like symptoms and was frequently absent-minded. He had begun work on music for a film, ''Adventures of Don Quixote'' (1933) from Miguel de Cervantes's celebrated novel, featuring the Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin and directed by G. W. Pabst. When Ravel became unable to compose, and could not write down the musical ideas he heard in his mind, Pabst hired Jacques Ibert. However, three songs for baritone and orchestra that Ravel composed for the film were later published under the title ''Don Quichotte a Dulcinée'', and have been performed and recorded. This accords with an earlier article, published in a journal of neurology, that closely examines Ravel's clinical history and argues that his works ''Boléro'' and Piano Concerto for the Left Hand both indicate the impacts of neurological disease. This is contradicted somewhat, however, by the earlier cited comments by Ravel about how he created the deliberately repetitious theme for ''Boléro''.

In late 1937, Ravel consented to experimental brain surgery. One hemisphere of his brain was re-inflated with serous fluid. He awoke from the surgery, called for his brother Édouard, lapsed into a coma and died shortly afterwards at the age of 62. Ravel probably died as a result of the brain surgery, with the underlying cause arguably being a brain injury caused by the automobile accident in 1932, and not from a brain tumor as some believe. This confusion may arise because his friend George Gershwin had died from a brain tumor only five months earlier. Ravel was buried with his parents in a granite tomb at the cemetery at Levallois-Perret, a suburb of northwest Paris.

Personal life

Ravel is not known to have had any intimate relationships, and his personal life, and especially his sexuality, remains a mystery. Ravel made a remark at one time suggesting that because he was such a perfectionist composer, so devoted to his work, he could never have a lasting intimate relationship with anyone. However, according to close friend and student Manuel Rosenthal, he asked violinist Hélène Jourdan-Mourhange to marry him, although she dismissed him, saying 'No, Maurice, I'm extremely fond of you, as you know, but only as a friend, and I couldn't possibly consider marrying you.'. He is quoted as saying "The only love affair I have ever had was with music". Some of his friends suggested that Ravel frequented the bordellos of Paris, but no factual evidence has ever been found to substantiate this rumor.

A recent hypothesis presented by David Lamaze, a composition teacher at the Conservatoire de Rennes in France, is that he hid in his music representations of the nickname and the name of Misia Godebska, transcribed into two groups of notes, Godebska = G D E B A and Misia = Mi + Si + A = E B A. He was invited onto her boat during a 1905 cruise on the Rhine after his failure at the Prix de Rome, for which her husband, Alfred Edwards, organized a scandal in the newspapers. This same man owned the Casino de Paris where the Ravel family had a number staged, ''Tourbillon de la mort'' (A Car Somersault). The family of her half-brother, Cipa Godebski, is said to have been like a second family for Ravel. In 1907 on Misia's boat ''L'Aimée'', Ravel completed ''L'heure espagnole'' and the ''Rapsodie espagnole,'' and at the premiere of ''Daphnis et Chloé'', Ravel arrived late and did not go to his box but to Misia's, where he offered her a Japanese doll. In her memoires, Misia hid all these facts.

Musicality

Musical sources

Active during a period of great artistic innovations and diversification, Ravel benefited from many sources and influences, though his music defies any facile classification. As Vladimir Jankélévitch notes in his biography, "no influence can claim to have conquered him entirely […]. Ravel remains ungraspable behind all these masks which the snobbery of the century has attempted to impose."

Ravel's musical language was ultimately very original, neither absolutely modernist nor impressionist. Like Debussy, Ravel categorically refused this description of “impressionist” which he believed was reserved exclusively for painting.

Ravel was a remarkable synthesist of disparate styles. His music matured early into his innovative and distinct style. As a student, he studied the scores of composers of the past methodically: as he stated, "in order to know one's own craft, one must study the craft of others." Though he liked the new French music, during his youth Ravel still felt fond of the older French styles of Franck and the Romanticism of Beethoven and Wagner. Following the teachings of Gédalge, Ravel placed high importance on melody, once stating to Vaughan Williams, that there is "an implied melodic outline in all vital music." He was inspired by various dances, his favorite being the minuet, composing the ''Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn'' during 1908, to commemorate the centenary of the death of Joseph Haydn. Other forms from which Ravel drew material include the forlane, rigaudon, waltz, czardas, habanera, passacaglia, and the boléro.

He believed that composers should be aware of both individual and national consciousness. For him, Basque music was influential. He intended to write an earlier concerto, ''Zazpiak Bat'', but it was never finished. The title is a result of his Basque heritage: meaning 'The Seven Are One' (see ''Zazpiak Bat''), it refers to the seven Basque regions, and was a motto often used in association with the idea of a Basque nation. Instead, Ravel abandoned the piece, using its nationalistic themes and rhythms in some of his other pieces. Ravel also used other folk themes including Hebraic, Greek, and Hungarian.

Ravel has almost always been considered one of the two great French impressionist composers, the other being Debussy. In reality Ravel was much more than an Impressionist (and in fact he resented being labelled as such). For example, he made extensive use of rollicking jazz tunes in his Piano Concerto in G Major in the first and third movements. Ravel also imitates Paganini's and Liszt's virtuoso gypsy themes and technique in ''Tzigane''. In his ''À la manière de...Borodine'' (''In the manner of...Borodin''), Ravel plays with the ability to both mimic and remain original. In a more complex situation, ''A la maniere de...Emmanuel Chabrier/Paraphrase sur un air de Gounod ("Faust IIème acte")'', Ravel takes on a theme from Gounod's ''Faust'' and arranges it in the style of Chabrier. He also composed short pieces in the manner of Haydn and his teacher Fauré. Even in writing in the style of others, Ravel's own voice as a composer remained distinct.

Ravel considered himself in many ways a classicist. He often relied on traditional forms, such as the ternary form, as well as traditional structures as ways of presenting his new melodic and rhythmic content, and his innovative harmonies. Ravel stated, "If I were called upon to do so, I would ask to be allowed to identify myself with the simple pronouncements made by Mozart ... He confined himself to saying that there is nothing that music cannot undertake to do, or dare, or portray, provided it continues to charm and always remain music." He often masked the sections of his structure with transitions that disguised the beginnings of the motif. This is apparent in his ''Valses nobles et sentimentales'' – inspired by Franz Schubert's collections, ''Valses nobles'' and ''Valses sentimentales'' – where the seven movements begin and end without pause, and in his chamber music where many movements are in sonata-allegro form, hiding the change from developmental sections to recapitulation.

From his own experience, Ravel was cognizant of the effect of new music on the ears of the public and he insightfully wrote:

On the initial performance of a new musical composition, the first impression of the public is generally one of reaction to the more superficial elements of its music, that is to say, to its external manifestations rather than to its inner content…often it is not until years after, when the means of expression have finally surrendered all their secrets, that the real inner emotion of the music becomes apparent to the listener.

Methods

His own composing method was craftsman-like and perfectionistic. Igor Stravinsky once referred to Ravel as "the most perfect of Swiss watchmakers", a reference to the intricacy and precision of Ravel's works. Ravel might work on a piece over several years to develop it to the best possible result, “My objective, therefore, is technical perfection. I can strive unceasingly to this end, since I am certain of never being able to attain it. The important thing is to get nearer to it all the time.”

More specifically he stated:

”In my own compositions I judge a long period of conscious gestation necessary. During this interval I come progressively, and with growing precision, to see the form and the evolution that the final work will take in its tonality. Thus I can be occupied for several years without writing a single note of the work, after which composition goes relatively quickly. But one must spend much time in eliminating all that could be regarded as superfluous in order to realize as completely as possible the definitive clarity so much desired. The moment arrives when new conceptions must be formulated for the final composition, but they cannot be artificially forced for they come only of their own accord, often deriving their original from some far-off perception and only manifesting themselves after long years.” For example, ''Gaspard de la nuit'' can be viewed as an extension of Liszt’s virtuosity and advanced harmonics. Even Ravel’s most difficult pieces, however, are marked by elegance and refinement. Walter Gieseking found some of Ravel’s piano works to be among the most difficult pieces for the instrument but always based on “musically perfectly logical concepts”; not just technically demanding but also requiring the right expression. In writing for the other sections, he often preferred to score ''in tutti'' to produce a full, clear resonance. To add surprise and added color, the melody might start with one instrument and be continued with another.

Because of his perfectionism and methods, Ravel’s musical output over four decades is quite small. Most of his works were thought out over considerable lengths of time, then notated quickly, and refined painstakingly. When a piece would not progress, he would abandon a piece until inspired anew. There are only about sixty compositions in all, of which slightly more than half are instrumental. Ravel’s body of work includes pieces for piano, chamber works, two piano concerti, ballet music, opera, and song cycles.

Ravel crafted his manuscripts meticulously, and relentlessly polished and corrected them. He destroyed hundreds of sketches and even re-copied entire autographs to correct one mistake. Early printed editions of his works were prone to errors so he worked painstakingly with his publisher, Durand, to correct them. One London critic stated "His baton is not the magician's wand of a virtuoso conductor. He just stood there beating time and keeping watch." As to how his music was to be played, Ravel was always clear and direct with his instructions.

Though never a paid critic as Debussy had been, Ravel had strong opinions on historical and contemporary music and musicians, which influenced his younger contemporaries. In creating his own music, he tended to avoid the more monumental composers as models, finding relatively little kinship with or inspiration from Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Hector Berlioz, or Franck. However, as an outspoken commentator on the Romantic giants, he found much of Beethoven "exasperating", Wagner's influence "pernicious" and Berlioz's harmony "clumsy". He had considerable admiration for other 19th century masters such as Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Schubert. Despite what he considered its technical deficiencies, Ravel was a strong advocate of Russian music and praised its spontaneity, orchestral color, and exoticism.

Notable compositions

''Menuet antique'' (piano, 1895, orchestrated in 1929)

''Shéhérazade (ouverture de féerie)'' (1897)

''Pavane pour une infante défunte'' ("Pavane for a dead infanta") (piano 1899, orchestra 1910)

''Jeux d'eau'' (piano, 1901)

String Quartet in F major (1902–3)

''Shéhérazade'' (orchestral song cycle, 1903) Setting poems by his friend Tristan Klingsor

''Sonatine'' (piano, 1903–1905)

''Introduction and Allegro'' (pedal harp, flute, clarinet, string quartet, 1905)

''Miroirs'' ("Reflections") (piano, 1905):

*''Noctuelles'' ("Night moths")

*''Oiseaux tristes'' ("Sad birds")

*''Une barque sur l'océan'' ("A boat on the ocean"; orchestrated 1906)

*''Alborada del Gracioso'' ("Dawn song of the jester"; orchestrated 1918)

*''La vallée des cloches'' ("Valley of the bells")

''Histoires naturelles'' ("Tales from nature") (song cycle for voice and piano, text by Jules Renard, 1906)

''Pièce en forme de Habanera'' (bass voice and piano, 1907)

''Rapsodie espagnole'' ("Spanish Rhapsody") (orchestra, 1907)

''L'heure espagnole'' ("The Spanish Hour") (opera, 1907–1909)

''Gaspard de la nuit'' ("Demons of the night") (piano, 1908)

''Ma Mère l'Oye'' ("Mother Goose") (piano duet 1908–1910, orchestrated 1911, expanded into ballet 1912)

''Daphnis et Chloé'' ("Daphnis and Chloé") (ballet, 1909–1912)

''Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé'', (voice, piano, flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet and string quartet, 1913)

''Valses nobles et sentimentales'' ("Noble and Sentimental Waltzes") (piano 1911, orchestra 1912)

Piano Trio A minor (1914)

''Le Tombeau de Couperin'' ("Tombeau for Couperin"; piano 1914–1917; movements I, III, IV and V orchestrated 1919)

*I. Prelude

*II. Fugue

*III. Forlane

*IV. Rigaudon

*V. Minuet

*VI. Toccata

''La Valse'' (choreographic poem, 1906–1914 and 1919–1920)

Sonata for Violin and Cello in C Major (1920–1922)

''Chansons Madécasses'' ("Songs of Madagascar") (voice, flute, cello and piano, text by Evariste Parny, 1926)

''L'enfant et les sortilèges'' ("The Child and the Spells", lyric fantasy, 1920–1925, libretto by Colette 1917)

''Tzigane'' (violin and piano, 1924)

Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major (1923–1927)

''Fanfare'' (1927; for the children's ballet ''L'Éventail de Jeanne'', to which ten French composers each contributed a dance)

''Boléro'' (ballet, 1928)

Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D major (1929–1930; composed for Paul Wittgenstein)

Piano Concerto in G (1929–1931)

''Don Quichotte à Dulcinée'' ("Serenade of Don Quixote to Dulcinea"; voice and piano, 1932–1933)

Media depictions

Canadian filmmaker Larry Weinstein has produced two documentaries about Ravel, ''Ravel'' (1987) and ''Ravel's Brain'' (2001). The second of these two films dramatizes the musician's illness and death.

Maurice Ravel is played as a "bit role" by actor Oscar Loraine in the 1945 Gershwin film biography ''Rhapsody in Blue''.

See also

Compositions by Maurice Ravel

Expressionism

Impressionist music

Ravel scale

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

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Free Scores

www.kreusch-sheet-music.net – Free Scores by Ravel

Miscellaneous

Maurice Ravel Frontispice at www.maurice-ravel.net

Epitonic.com: Maurice Ravel featuring a track from ''Miroirs'' and ''Gaspard De La Nuit''

Biography of Maurice Ravel

The mystery of the missing Bolero millions – an artist's rights saga! – and a tale of greed?

Many quotations about Ravel's personality

Maurice Ravel "Vocalise Etude en form de Habanera" sung by Varda Kotler.

Recordings

Piano Rolls (The Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation)

Maurice Ravel on Wikilivres

Category:1875 births Category:1937 deaths Category:People from Labourd Category:French people of Basque descent Category:French people of Swiss descent Category:French composers Category:Opera composers Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Expressionism Category:Modernist composers Category:Neoclassical composers Category:French classical pianists Category:French-Basque people Category:Ballet composers Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society Category:Légion d'honneur refusals Category:Prix Blumenthal Category:Jurors of the International Chopin Competition Category:Basque classical musicians

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Cecile Licad (born May 11, 1961) is a renowned Filipina virtuoso classical pianist dubbed as a "a pianist's pianist" by ''The New Yorker'', "her artistry, a blend of daring musical instinct and superb training."

Biography

Cecile was born in Manila, Philippines to a musical family, she began her piano studies at the age of three from her mother, Rosario Licad. She later studied with the highly regarded Rosario Picazo, and by the age of seven, made her debut as a soloist with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Philippines.

At the age of twelve, Cecile, moved to the United States to study at the Curtis Institute of Music with three of the greatest performers/pedagogues: Rudolf Serkin, Seymour Lipkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski.

Awards

Cecile won international recognition as one of the youngest musicians to ever receive the prestigious Leventritt Competition Gold Medal. Her triumph in 1981 launched her international career performing with major orchestras in the world.

Her recording of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Saint-Saens' Piano Concerto No. 2, with André Previn conducting the London Philharmonic, was awarded the ''Grand Prix du Disque Frederic Chopin'' in 1985, in the piano and orchestra works category by the Fryderyk Chopin Society, Warsaw, Poland.

Repertoire

Cecile Licad's repertoire as a solo performer and an orchestral soloist ranges from the classical repertoire of Mozart and Beethoven to the Romantic literature of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Rachmaninoff to the modern works of Debussy, Ravel, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Bartók.

Performances

Soloist

Licad has appeared with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Children's Orchestra,and the orchestras of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Phoenix and Vancouver.

Her summer festival appearances have included Tanglewood, the International Music Festival of Seattle, Marlboro Music Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival (in both New York and Tokyo), the Eastern Music Festival (Greensboro, NC) and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. In Europe she has played with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra, and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; in Asia, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra.

Chamber music

As an accomplished chamber musician, Cecile has appeared on television with Mstislav Rostropovich and has performed with ensembles such as the New York Chamber Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Guarneri Quartet, Takács Quartet, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Music from Marlboro. She also appeared as guest soloist on a European tour with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has performed in recital with Murray Perahia, Peter Serkin and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, with whom she has appeared at Lincoln Center, Orchestra Hall in Chicago, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D. C.. She performs regularly with cellist Alban Gerhardt, performing throughout Europe and the United States, including at the Frick Collection in New York City.

Other Performances

She appeared as a soloist in the Steinway Piano Sesquicentennial Celebration at Carnegie Hall in June 2003 performing six Rachmaninoff Songs with operatic tenor Ben Heppner.

She played in 2006 three Chopin's pieces and Liszt's Mephisto Waltz no. 1 at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston MA ("The Concert Podcast", live recording available under Creative Commons Music Sharing licence at ).

In March 2007, she had a special performance together with her then 19-year old son Ottavio Licad-Meneses, also a pianist, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Discography

# ''Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, in A minor Op.43'' with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Claudio Abbado conducting from CBS Masterworks Records (1984). #''Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 and Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2'' with André Previn conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra from CBS Masterworks. #''Schumann's Carnaval, Papillons and Toccata in C Major'' from Sony Classical (1990). #''Tchaikovsky Piano Trio in A minor ('In Memory of a Great Artist'), Op. 50 and Brahms Trio for horn (or viola or cello), violin & piano in E flat major, Op. 40'' with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Antonio Meneses and John Cerminaro from EMI (1994). #''Cecile Licad Performs Chopin'' for Music Masters (1995). #''Franck & Brahms Sonatas: Salerno-Sonnenberg Licad'' with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg for EMI. #''Complete Beethoven Edition, Vol. 14: Misc. Chamber Works'' for Deutsche Grammophon (1997). Cecile with Patrick Gallois on flute performing Beethoven's ''Six National Airs with Variations for Flute and Piano, Op. 105'' and ''Ten National Airs with Variations for Flute and Piano, Op. 107.'' #''Ravel: Piano Works'' from Musical Heritage Society (1998). #''Summerfest La Jolla 1998'' from La Jolla Chamber Music Society (1998). #''Marlboro Music Festival 50th Anniversary Album'' from Bridge Records (2001). Cecile with Mieczyslaw Horszowski performing Beethoven's ''Three Marches for Piano, 4 hands, Op. 45''. #''Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival: Haydn Guitar Quartet in D Major; Korngold Piano Quintet'' from Koch Classics (2002). Cecile with Arnold Steinhardt, Benny Kim and Eric Kim performing Korngold's ''Piano Quintet in E Major, Op. 15.'' #''Louis Moreau Gottschalk: Piano Music'' from Naxos (2003). #''Casals Encores'' from Hyperion Records (2011) with Cecile accompanying cellist Alban Gerhardt in an album of favorite encore pieces of Pablo Casals.

References

External links

Cecile Licad's Official Web Site.

Cecile Licad Music Samples on Amazon.com

Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:Filipino classical pianists Category:People from Manila Category:Curtis Institute of Music alumni Category:Leventritt Award winners Category:Filipino classical musicians

nl:Cecile Licad ru:Ликад, Сесиль tl:Cecile Licad

Georges Bizet (25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer and pianist of the Romantic era. He is best known for the opera ''Carmen''.

Life and career

Bizet was born at 26 rue de la Tour d'Auvergne in the 9th arrondissement of Paris in 1838. He was named Georges Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, but he was always known thereafter as Georges Bizet. His father Adolphe Armand Bizet (1810–86) was an amateur singer and composer, and his mother, Aimée Léopoldine Joséphine née Delsarte (1814–61), was the sister of the noted singing teacher François Delsarte.

Bizet entered the Paris Conservatory of Music in October, 1848, a fortnight before his tenth birthday. His teachers there were Pierre Zimmermann (fugue and counterpoint; often assisted by his son-in-law Charles Gounod), Antoine François Marmontel (piano), François Benoist (organ) and, on Zimmermann's death, Fromental Halévy, whose daughter Bizet later married. He won first prizes for organ and fugue in 1855, and he completed his earliest compositions there.

Bizet's first symphony, the Symphony in C, was written in November 1855, when he was seventeen, evidently as a student assignment. It was unknown to the world until 1933, when it was discovered in the archives of the Paris Conservatory library. Upon its first performance in 1935, it was immediately hailed as a junior masterwork and a welcome addition to the early Romantic period repertoire. The symphony bears a stylistic resemblance to the first symphony of Gounod, first played earlier in the same year, and which Bizet had arranged for two pianos although present-day listeners may discern a similarity to music of Franz Schubert. In 1857, a setting of the one-act operetta ''Le docteur Miracle'' won him a share in a prize offered by Jacques Offenbach. He also won the music composition scholarship of the Prix de Rome, the conditions of which required him to study in Rome for three years. There, his talent developed as he wrote such works as the opera buffa ''Don Procopio'' (1858–59). There he also composed his only major sacred work, ''Te Deum'' (1858), which he submitted to the Prix Rodrigues competition, a contest for Prix de Rome winners only. Bizet failed to win the Prix Rodrigues, and the ''Te Deum'' score remained unpublished until 1971. He made two attempts to write another symphony in 1859, but destroyed the manuscripts in December of that year. Apart from this period in Rome, Bizet lived in the Paris area all his life.

Shortly after leaving Rome in July 1860, but while still touring in Italy, he had the idea of writing a symphony in which each of the four movements would be a musical evocation of a different Italian city – Rome, Venice, Florence and Naples. On hearing of his mother's serious illness he cut short his Italian travels and returned to Paris in September 1860; she died a year later. The Scherzo of the symphony was completed by November 1861, but it was not until 1866 that the first version of the whole symphony was written. He subjected it to a number of revisions through to 1871, but died before ever producing what he considered the definitive version. For this reason, the work is sometimes described as "unfinished", but this is an inaccurate description as it was fully scored. It was published after his death in 1880 as the Roma Symphony.

In June 1862 the Bizet family's maid, Marie Reiter, gave birth to a son, Jean Bizet. The boy was brought up to believe that his father was Adolphe Bizet, and that he was Georges's half-brother, but his mother later revealed that his true father was Georges Bizet. His former teacher Halévy died in 1862, leaving his last opera ''Noé'' unfinished. Bizet completed it, but it was not performed until 1885, ten years after Bizet's own death.

Bizet composed the opera ''Les pêcheurs de perles'' (''The Pearl Fishers''), a drama of love and ritual in Ceylon for the Théâtre Lyrique in 1863; it was initially a failure. In 1866, Bizet was hired to arrange two of Ambroise Thomas's operas for both solo and duo piano. The works of his youth displayed his power of evoking exotic atmosphere such as ''La jolie fille de Perth'' (after Walter Scott's novel), which takes place in a romanticized Scotland (premiered also in the Théâtre Lyrique, in 1867). Although these operas were not overwhelmingly successful, they established Bizet's reputation as a composer to be reckoned with.

On 3 June 1869, Bizet married Geneviève Halévy (1849–1926), the daughter of his late teacher Fromental Halévy. At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in July 1870, Bizet joined the French National Guard, as did some other well-known composers. This delayed his progress on several works. The armistice of January 1871 was followed by a civil uprising, which resulted in a two-month period of bloodshed and unrest in Paris. Bizet and his wife fled to Le Vésinet near Paris, to escape the violence. From November 1871 until his death Bizet was a member of the Conservatoire examination committees for composition, counterpoint and fugue, and for piano and harp.

Bizet wrote ''Jeux d'enfants'' (''Children's Games'') for piano duet in 1871. The following year (22 May 1872) saw the production of the one-act opéra comique ''Djamileh'', which is often seen as a precursor to ''Carmen''. He wrote incidental music for the play ''L'Arlésienne'' by Alphonse Daudet, first performed on 1 October 1872. Bizet derived a ''L'Arlésienne Suite'' from the music (first performed 10 November 1872), and Ernest Guiraud later arranged a second suite; both contain considerable rewriting of the original score (many performances of the second suite omit any mention of Guiraud's contribution). His overture ''Patrie'' was written in 1873 (it had no connection with Victorien Sardou's play ''Patrie!''). ''Carmen'' (1875) is Bizet's best-known work and is based on a novella of the same title written in 1846 by the French writer Prosper Mérimée. Bizet composed the title role for a mezzo-soprano. It was substantially composed during the summer of 1873, but not finished until the end of 1874, during which time his marriage came under severe strain and he separated from his wife for two months. ''Carmen'' premiered on 3 March 1875, at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and was not initially well-received, although it ran for 37 performances in the next three months, an average of three a week; it was Bizet's greatest success so far. Bizet had put every ounce of his genius into ''Carmen'', and its lukewarm reception was a bitter disappointment. Praise for it eventually came from well-known contemporaries including Debussy, Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky. Brahms attended over twenty performances of it, and considered it the greatest opera produced in Europe since the Franco-Prussian War. The views of these composers proved to be prophetic, as ''Carmen'' has since become one of the most popular works in the entire operatic repertoire. ''Carmen'' contains two of Bizet's most famous songs, the "Habanera" and "The Toreador's Song", which compete for popularity with the tenor-baritone duet "Au fond du temple saint" ("In the depths of the temple") from ''The Pearl Fishers''.

However, Bizet did not live to see ''Carmen'''s success. He died from heart failure at the age of 36 in Bougival (Yvelines), about 10 miles west of Paris. It has been suggested that Élie-Miriam Delaborde, who was believed to be the illegitimate son of Charles-Valentin Alkan, may have been indirectly responsible for Bizet's death, which followed a swimming competition between the two, as a result of which Bizet caught a chill. Murder or even suicide were suspected at the time, as what was described as a "gunshot wound" appeared to be on the left side of his neck. However, this was most likely a lymph node which swelled and perforated. He almost certainly died with a systemic streptococcal infection, consistent with his lifelong medical history.

Bizet died on his sixth wedding anniversary, exactly three months after ''Carmen's'' first performance. His death came just when he had found his mature style. He was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, alongside other greats like Chopin and Rossini. ''Carmen'' was then immediately dropped by the Opéra-Comique. Yet within three years, it had made its way to Vienna, Brussels, London, New York City, and soon to Germany and Russia, also. Five years later, ''Carmen'' returned to Paris, where it was received rapturously and launched on its long-running success. Today it is one of the world's best-loved operas.

Bizet the pianist

Bizet's work as a composer has overshadowed how fine a pianist he was. He could easily have had a career as a concert pianist had he so wished, but he hated the idea. In an 1867 letter, he wrote, ''I play the piano very well and live on it very poorly as nothing in the world could make me play publicly. I find the profession of a pianist odious''. He did occasionally play in public or at private soirées, but limited such appearances for fear of being considered a pianist rather than a composer.

Bizet was also a magnificent sight-reader. On 26 May 1861, at a dinner party at the Halévys at which Franz Liszt was present, Bizet gave a faultless performance of an elaborate work of Liszt's, reading at sight from the unpublished manuscript. Liszt proclaimed that Bizet was one of the three finest pianists in Europe. Bizet's sight-reading skill was also praised by Hector Berlioz, his teacher Marmontel, and many others. Berlioz wrote in the "Journal des Débats" on 8 October 1863, ''His talent as a pianist is so great that no difficulty can stop him when sight-reading orchestral scores. After Liszt and Mendelssohn one could see few sight-readers of his ability''.

Posthumously

His widow Geneviève later had an alliance with Élie-Miriam Delaborde; indeed, there exists an application for registration of a marriage between them, which never took place. Instead, she married Émile Straus, a banker with Rothschild family connections, and became a noted society hostess. The writer Marcel Proust used her as a model for the Madame Verdurin in his ''roman-fleuve'' ''À la recherche du temps perdu''. (The Bizets' son, Jacques Bizet (1872–1922), who became a writer, had been a friend of Proust's while they were schoolboys together at the same school.)

Bizet's music was used in the twentieth century as the basis for several important ballets. The Soviet-era ''Carmen Suite'' (1967), set to music drawn from ''Carmen'' arranged by Rodion Shchedrin, gave the Bolshoi ballerina Maya Plisetskaya one of her signature roles; it was choreographed by Alberto Alonso. In the West the ''L'Arlesienne'' of Roland Petit is well regarded, and ''Symphony in C'' by George Balanchine is considered to be one of the great ballets of the twentieth century. It was first presented as Le Palais de Crystal by the Paris Opera Ballet in 1947, and it has been in the repertory there ever since. The ballet has no story: it simply fits the music. Each movement of the symphony has its own ballerina, cavalier, and corps de ballet, all of whom dance together in the finale.

Works

References

External links

The Lied and Art Song Texts Page created and mantained from Emily Ezust Texts of the Melodies of Bizet with translations in various languages.

Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet (1838-1875)

Bizet Biography

Mina Curtiss collection (research materials used by one of Bizet's biographers) in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Lettres à un ami, 1865-1872 (French) at Gutenberg.org

;Free sheet music

Free scores Mutopia Project

Carmen. Selections, piano (From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)

Carmen Fantasie, for violin and piano (From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)

L’Arlésienne : incidental music to the melodrama by Alphonse Daudet, for piano 4 hands (From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)

Category:1838 births Category:1875 deaths Category:Musicians from Paris Category:Alumni of the Conservatoire de Paris Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Category:Deaths from heart failure Category:French composers Category:Opera composers Category:Prix de Rome for composition Category:Romantic composers

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