Kent Nagano

In Oper für Alle, Munich, 2010

Kent George Nagano (born November 22, 1951) is an American conductor and opera administrator. He is currently the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Bavarian State Opera.

Biography[link]

Nagano was born in Berkeley, California, while his parents were in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. He grew up in Morro Bay, a city located on the Central Coast of California. He is Japanese American. He studied sociology and music at the University of California, Santa Cruz^{[citation needed]}. After graduation he moved to San Francisco State University to study music. While there, he took composition courses from Grosvenor Cooper and Roger Nixon. He also studied at the École Normale de Musique in Paris.^[1]

His first conducting job was with the Opera Company of Boston, where he was assistant conductor to Sarah Caldwell. In 1978, he became the conductor of the Berkeley Symphony, his first music directorship. He stepped down from this position in 2009.^[2] During his tenure in Berkeley, Nagano became a champion of the music of Olivier Messiaen and initiated a correspondence with him.^[3]

In 1982, Nagano conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in several of Frank Zappa's completely orchestral compositions for the first time. Nagano recorded several of Zappa's pieces on the issue London Symphony Orchestra, Vol. 1, where Zappa had personally chosen Nagano to conduct the orchestra. Nagano described this as "my first chance, my first real break".^[4]

In 1985 he was awarded the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award.

Nagano was music director of the Opéra de Lyon from 1988–1998, where he recorded, with the Lyon National Opera Orchestra and chorus, numerous works by Busoni (Doktor Faust, Arlecchino and Turandot), Stravinsky (The Rake's Progress), Offenbach (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Debussy (world premiere of Rodrigue et Chimène), Canteloube (Chants d'Auvergne), Berlioz (La Damnation de Faust), Carlisle Floyd (Susannah), Richard Strauss (The French version of Salomé, the original version of Ariadne auf Naxos), Peter Eötvös (Trois Soeurs), Massenet (Werther), Delibes (Coppelia), Poulenc(Dialogues des Carmélites), Ravel (orchestral works), and Weill (Seven Deadly Sins).

He served as principal conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester from 1992-1999. During his tenure, Nagano received criticism for his expensive and ambitious programming, as well as his conducting fees.^[5] However, poor financial management at the orchestra separately contributed to the fiscal troubles of the orchestra.^[6] His contract was not renewed after 1999.

On August 4, 1996, Icelandic avant-pop artist Björk appeared at the Verbier Festival, and performed Schöenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, with Nagano conducing.

Nagano created the Arnold Schönberg Prize in 2001.

Nagano became principal conductor and artistic director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in 2000, and served in this position until 2006. He made a number of recordings with the orchestra, including music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Bruckner, Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Gustav Mahler.

Nagano became principal conductor at Los Angeles Opera (LA Opera) starting from the 2001-2002 season. In May 2003, Nagano was named the LA Opera's first music director, and he retained this position through 2006. He has been a regular guest at the Salzburg Festival, where he premiered Kaija Saariaho's L'amour de loin in 2000. He also conducted the world premiere of John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer at la Monnaie in Brussels.

Nagano became the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal in 2006 and of the Bavarian State Opera in 2006; his current contracts with each organisation end in 2011^[7] and he has opted not to extend his contract in Munich beyond the summer of 2013.^[8] His contract with the Bavarian State Opera does not allow him to be the music director of another opera company.^[9] He is also one of the Russian National Orchestra's Conductor Collegium.^[10]

Nagano is married to the pianist Mari Kodama, and they have one daughter.

Honors[link]

• Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, 2008.
• Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize 2010, Beethovenfest Bonn

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Kent Nagano official website
• Kent Nagano at the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
• Kent Nagano at Allmusic
• Kent Nagano discography
• 2008 Autumn Conferment of Decorations on Foreign Nationals

Kent
Invicta Flag of Kent Invicta
Motto of County Council: ''Invicta''
Geography
Status	Ceremonial and (smaller) non-metropolitan county
Region	South East England
Area - Total - Admin. council - Admin. area	Ranked 10th 3,736 km2 (1,442 sq mi) Ranked 10th 3,544 km2 (1,368 sq mi)
Admin HQ	Maidstone
ISO 3166-2	GB-KEN
ONS code	29
NUTS 3	UKJ42
Demography
Population - Total (2010 est.) - Density - Admin. council - Admin. pop.	Ranked 7th 1,684,200 451 /km2 (1,170 /sq mi) Ranked 1st 1,427,500
Ethnicity	96.9% White 1.9% Asian
Politics
"CANTIA" Kent County Council http://www.kent.gov.uk/ Medway Council http://www.medway.gov.uk/
Executive	Conservative
Members of Parliament	Julian Brazier (C) Rehman Chishti (C) Greg Clark (C) Damian Collins (C) Tracey Crouch (C) Charlie Elphicke (C) Michael Fallon (C) Roger Gale (C) Helen Grant (C) Damian Green (C) Gordon Henderson (C) Adam Holloway (C) Gareth Johnson (C) Mark Reckless (C) Hugh Robertson (C) Laura Sandys (C) John Stanley (C)
Districts
Sevenoaks Dartford Gravesham Tonbridge and Malling Medway (Unitary) Maidstone Tunbridge Wells Swale Ashford Canterbury Shepway Thanet Dover

Kent /ˈkɛnt/ is a county in South East England, and one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of Medway. Kent has a nominal border with France halfway through the Channel Tunnel. Maidstone is its county town and historically Rochester and Canterbury have been accorded city status, though only the latter still holds it.

Kent's location between London and the continental Europe has led to its being in the front line of several conflicts, including the Battle of Britain during World War II. East Kent was known as Hell Fire Corner during the conflict. England has relied on the county's ports to provide warships through much of the past 800 years; the Cinque Ports in the 12th–14th centuries and Chatham Dockyard in the 16th–20th centuries were of particular importance to the country's security. France can be seen clearly in fine weather from Folkestone, and the iconic White Cliffs of Dover.

Because of its abundance of orchards and hop gardens, Kent is known as "The Garden of England" – a name often applied when marketing the county or its produce, although other regions have tried to lay claim to the title.^[1][2] Major industries in the north-west of Kent have included cement, papermaking, and aircraft construction, but these are now in decline. Large parts of Kent are within the London commuter belt. South and East Kent rely on tourism and agriculture. Coal mining has also played its part in Kent's industrial heritage.

History[link]

The area has been occupied since the Palaeolithic era, as attested by finds from the quarries at Swanscombe. The Medway megaliths were built during the Neolithic era. There is a rich sequence of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman era occupation, as indicated by finds and features such as the Ringlemere gold cup and the Roman villas of the Darent valley.^[3]

The modern name of Kent is derived from the Brythonic word Cantus meaning "rim" or "border". This describes the eastern part of the current county area as a border land or coastal district. Julius Caesar had described the area as Cantium, or home of the Cantiaci in 51 BC.^[4]

The extreme west of the modern county was occupied by Iron Age tribes, known as the Regnenses. It is possible that another ethnic group occupied what is now called The Weald and East Kent. East Kent became a kingdom of the Jutes during the 5th century^[5] and was known as Cantia from about 730 and as Cent in 835. The early medieval inhabitants of the county were known as the Cantwara, or Kent people. These people regarded the city of Canterbury as their capital.^[6]

In 597, Pope Gregory I appointed Augustine as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. In the previous year, Augustine successfully converted the pagan King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity. The Diocese of Canterbury became Britain's first Episcopal See and has since remained Britain's centre of Christianity.^[7]

In the 11th century, the people of Kent adopted the motto Invicta, meaning "undefeated". This naming followed the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy. The Kent people's continued resistance against the Normans led to Kent's designation as a semi-autonomous County Palatine in 1067. Under the nominal rule of William's half-brother Odo of Bayeux, the county was granted similar powers to those granted in the areas bordering Wales and Scotland.^[8]

During the medieval and early modern period, Kent played a major role in several of England's most notable rebellions, including the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, led by Wat Tyler,^[9] Jack Cade's Kent rebellion of 1450, and Wyatt's Rebellion of 1554 against Queen Mary I.^[10]

Titlepage of William Lambard's Perambulation of Kent, being a history of the county of Kent since William the Conqueror.

The Royal Navy first used the River Medway in 1547. By the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) a small dockyard had been established at Chatham. By 1618, storehouses, a ropewalk, a drydock, and houses for officials had been built downstream from Chatham.^[11]

By the 17th century, tensions between Britain and the powers of the Netherlands and France led to increasing military build-up in the county. Forts were built all along the coast following the raid on the Medway, a successful attack by the Dutch navy on the shipyards of the Medway towns in 1667.^[12]

The 18th century was dominated by wars with France, during which the Medway became the primary base for a fleet that could act along the Dutch and French coasts. When the theatre of operation moved to the Atlantic, this role was assumed by Portsmouth and Plymouth, with Chatham concentrating on shipbuilding and ship repair. As an indication of the area's military importance, the first Ordnance Survey map ever drawn was a one-inch map of Kent, published in 1801.^[13] Many of the Georgian naval buildings still stand.

In the early 19th century, smugglers were very active on the Kent coastline. Gangs such as The Aldington Gang brought spirits, tobacco and salt to the county, and transported goods such as wool across the sea to France.^[14]

In 1889, the County of London was created and the townships of Deptford, Greenwich, Woolwich, Lee, Eltham, Charlton, Kidbrooke and Lewisham were transferred out of Kent and in 1900 the area of Penge was gained. Some of Kent, notably Dartford, is contiguous with Greater London.

During World War II, much of the Battle of Britain was fought in the skies over the county. Between June 1944 and March 1945, over 10,000 V1 flying bombs or "Doodlebugs", were fired toward London from bases in Northern France. Although many were destroyed by aircraft, anti-aircraft guns, and barrage balloons, both London and Kent were hit by around 2,500 of these bombs.

After the war, Kent's borders changed several more times. In 1965 the London boroughs of Bromley and Bexley were created from nine towns formerly in Kent.^[15][16] In 1998, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham, and Rainham left the administrative county of Kent to form the Unitary Authority of Medway. During this reorganisation, through an "apparent" administrative oversight, the city of Rochester lost its official city status.^[17]

Climate[link]

Kent is one of the warmest parts of Britain. On 10 August 2003, in the hamlet of Brogdale near Faversham the temperature reached 38.5 °C (101.3 °F), the hottest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom.^[18]

Here is a climate chart for Wye near Ashford.

Physical geography[link]

'The White Cliffs of Dover'

Kent is in the southeastern corner of England. It borders the River Thames and the North Sea to the north, and the Straits of Dover and the English Channel to the south. France is 34 kilometres (21 mi) across the Strait.^[19]

The major geographical features of the county are determined by a series of ridges and valleys running east-west across the county. These are the results of erosion of the Wealden dome, a dome across Kent and Sussex created by Alpine movements 10–20 million years ago. This dome consists of an upper layer of Chalk above successive layers of Upper Greensand, Gault Clay, Lower Greensand, Weald Clay, and Wealden sandstone. The ridges and valleys formed when the exposed clay eroded faster than the exposed chalk, greensand, or sandstone.

Geological map of southeast England, showing a concentric circular pattern formed by the weathering of the Wealden dome.

Sevenoaks, Maidstone, Ashford, and Folkestone are built on greensand,^[20] while Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells are built on sandstone.^[21] Dartford, Gravesend, the Medway towns, Sittingbourne, Faversham, Canterbury, Deal, and Dover are built on chalk.^[20][21] The easterly section of the Wealden dome has been eroded away by the sea, and cliffs such as the white cliffs of Dover are present where a chalk ridge known as the North Downs meets the coast. Spanning Dover and Westerham is the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.^[22]

The Wealden dome is a Mesozoic structure lying on a Palaeozoic foundation, which can often create the right conditions for coal formation. This is found in East Kent roughly between Deal, Canterbury, and Dover. The Coal Measures within the Westphalian Sandstone are deep about 250 m – 400 m (800 – 1300 ft) and subject to flooding. They occur in two major troughs, which extend under the English Channel where similar coalfields are located.^[23]

Seismic activity has occasionally been recorded in Kent, though the epicentres were offshore. In 1382 and 1580 there were two earthquakes exceeding 6.0 on the Richter Scale. In 1776, 1950, and on 28 April 2007 there were earthquakes of around 4.3. The 2007 earthquake caused physical damage in Folkestone.^[24]

Geological cross section of Kent, showing how it relates to major towns

The coastline of Kent is continuously changing, due to tectonic uplift and coastal erosion. Until about 960, the Isle of Thanet was an island, separated by the Wantsum channel, formed around a deposit of chalk; over time, the channels silted up with alluvium. Similarly Romney Marsh and Dungeness have been formed by accumulation of alluvium.^[21]

Kent's principal river, the River Medway, rises near East Grinstead in Sussex and flows eastwards to Maidstone. Here it turns north and breaks through the North Downs at Rochester, then joins the estuary of the River Thames as its final tributary near Sheerness. The Medway is some 112 kilometres (70 mi) long.^[25][26] The river is tidal as far as Allington lock, but in earlier times, cargo-carrying vessels reached as far upstream as Tonbridge.^[25] The Medway has captured the head waters of other rivers such as the River Darent. Other rivers of Kent include the River Stour in the east.

Demographics[link]

As of the 2001 UK census,^[27] Kent, including Medway, had 1,579,206 residents and 646,308 households, of which 1,329,718 residents and 546,742 households were within the administrative boundaries. Of those households, 48.9% were married couples living together, 9.0% were co-habiting couples and 8.7% were lone parents; 28.0% of households consisted of individuals, 14.6% had someone of pensionable age living alone, and 30.4% included children aged under 16 or a person aged 16 to 18 who was in full-time education. For every 100 females, there were 93.9 males.

The ethnicity of Kent was 96.5% White, 0.9% mixed race, 0.3% Chinese, 1.7% other Asian and 0.4% Black. The place of birth for residents was 94.2% United Kingdom, 0.7% Republic of Ireland, 0.5% Germany, 0.9% other Western Europe countries, 0.3% Eastern Europe, 0.8% Africa, 0.6% Far East, 0.9% South Asia, 0.2% Middle East, 0.4% North America, 0.1% South America and 0.3% Oceania. Religion was recorded as 74.6% Christian, 0.7% Sikh, 0.6% Muslim, 0.4% Hindu, 0.2% Buddhist and 0.1% Jewish, while 15.2% were recorded as having no religion, 0.3% had an alternative religion, and 7.8% did not state their religion.

Government[link]

Kent County Council (KCC) and its 12 district councils administer most of the county (3352 km²), while the Medway Towns Council, a unitary authority and commonly called Medway Council, administers the more densely populated remainder (192 km²).^[28] Together they have around 300 town and parish councils. Kent County Council's headquarters are in Maidstone,^[29] while Medway's offices are at Gun Wharf, Chatham.

As of the 2009 county council elections, Kent County Council was controlled by the Conservatives, which won 74 of the Council's 84 seats, 7 were won by the Liberal Democrats, 2 by the Labour Party and 1 by the Swanscombe and Greenhithe Residents Association. As of the 2007 local elections, Medway Council was controlled by the Conservatives; 33 of the Council's 55 seats were held by the Conservatives, 13 by the Labour Party, 8 by the Liberal Democrats and 1 by an Independent.^[30] Currently, all of Kent's district councils are controlled by the Conservatives; the only British county that is in this position.

At the national level, Kent is represented in Parliament by 17 MPs, all of whom are Conservative. Kent is in the European Parliament constituency of South East England, which elects ten members of the European Parliament.^[31]

Economy[link]

Converted oast at Frittenden.

As of the 2001 UK census,^[27] employment statistics for the residents in Kent, including Medway, were as follows: 41.1% in full-time employment, 12.4% in part-time employment, 9.1% self-employed, 2.9% unemployed, 2.3% students with jobs, 3.7% students without jobs, 12.3% retired, 7.3% looking after home or family, 4.3% permanently sick or disabled, and 2.7% economically inactive for other reasons. Of residents aged 16–74, 16% had a higher education qualification or the equivalent, compared to 20% nationwide.^[27]

The average hours worked per week by residents of Kent were 43.1 for males and 30.9 for females. Their industry of employment was 17.3% retail, 12.4% manufacturing, 11.8% real estate, 10.3% health and social work, 8.9% construction, 8.2% transport and communications, 7.9% education, 6.0% public administration and defence, 5.6% finance, 4.8% other community and personal service activities, 4.1% hotels and restaurants, 1.6% agriculture, 0.8% energy and water supply, 0.2% mining, and 0.1% private households. This is higher than the whole of England for construction and transport/communications, and lower for manufacturing.

Kent is sometimes known as the "Garden of England" for its abundance of orchards and hop gardens. Distinctive hop-drying buildings called oasts are common in the countryside, although many have been converted into dwellings. Nearer to London, market gardens also flourish.

However, in recent years, there has been a significant drop in agriculture, and industry and services are increasing their utilisation of the area. This is illustrated by the following table of economic indicator gross value added (GVA) between 1995 and 2000 (figures are in millions of British Pounds Sterling).^[32]

North Kent is heavily industrialised with cement-making at Northfleet and Cuxton, brickmaking at Sittingbourne, shipbuilding on the Medway and Swale, engineering and aircraft design and construction at Rochester, chemicals at Dartford and papermaking at Swanley, and oil refining at Grain.^[15] A steel mini mill in Sheerness and a rolling mill in Queenborough.There are two nuclear power stations at Dungeness, although the older one, built in 1965, was closed at the end of 2006.^[33]

Cement-making, papermaking, and coal-mining were important industries in Kent during the 19th and 20th century. Cement came to the fore in the 19th century when massive building projects were undertaken. The ready supply of chalk and huge pits between Stone and Gravesend bear testament to that industry. There were also other workings around Burham on the tidal Medway.^[34]

Kent's original paper mills stood on streams like the River Darent, tributaries of the River Medway, and on the River Stour. Two 18th century mills were on the River Len and at Tovil on the River Loose. In the late 19th century huge modern mills were built at Dartford and Northfleet on the River Thames and at Kemsley on The Swale. In pre-industrial times, almost every village and town had its own windmill or watermill, with over 400 windmills known to have stood at some time. Twenty eight survive within the county today, plus two replica mills and a further two in that part of Kent now absorbed into London. All the major rivers in the county were used to power watermills.

From about 1900, several coal pits operated in East Kent. The Kent Coalfield was mined during the 20th century at several collieries,^[35] including Chislet, Tilmanstone, Betteshanger, and the Snowdown Colliery, which ran from 1908 to 1986.^[36]

The west of the county (including Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells & Sevenoaks) is generally more affluent than the east, especially when compared to the coastal regions of Folkestone, Dover & Thanet. This is partly due to the former's proximity to London, making it prime "commuter belt" and the latter's geographic extremities. The eagerly awaited CTRL 2009 rail service, using the high speed Channel Tunnel line to bring coastal areas' travel times to London down to around an hour, is hoped to further regeneration.

Arts[link]

Kent has provided inspiration for several notable writers and artists. Canterbury's religious role gave rise to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a key development in the English language. The father of novelist Charles Dickens worked at the Chatham Dockyard; in many of his books, the celebrated novelist featured the scenery of Chatham, Rochester, and the Cliffe marshes.^[37] The landscape painter J. M. W. Turner spent part of his childhood in the town of Margate in East Kent, and regularly returned to visit it throughout his life. The East Kent coast inspired many of his works, including some of his most famous seascapes.^[38] During the late 1930s, Nobel Prize-awarded novelist William Golding worked as a teacher at Maidstone Grammar School, where he met his future wife Ann Brookfield.^[39]

The county's largest theatre is The Marlowe Theatre, situated in the centre of Canterbury. It re-opened, after being completely rebuilt, in October 2011.^[40]

Transport[link]

Roads[link]

The M2 and High Speed 1 crossing the Medway Valley, south of Rochester.

With the Roman invasion, a road network was constructed to connect London to the Channel ports of Dover, Lympne and Richborough. The London–Dover road was Watling Street. These roads are now approximately the A2, B2068, A257, and the A28. The A2 runs through Dartford (A207), Gravesend, Rochester, Canterbury and Dover; the A20 through Eltham, Wrotham, Maidstone, Charing, Ashford. Hythe, Folkestone and Dover; the A21 around Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells and on to Hastings in East Sussex.^[15] In the 1960s, two motorways were built; the M2 from Medway to Faversham, and the M20 from Swanley to Folkestone. Part of the M25 runs through Kent, from Westerham to the Kent and Essex tunnel at Dartford. The Dartford tunnel has been joined by the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, together providing four lanes in each direction. The M26 motorway, built in 1980, provides a short link between the M25 at Sevenoaks and the M20 near Wrotham. Kent currently has more motorways by distance than any other county in the UK, with sections of the M2, M20, M25 and M26 totalling 173 km within the extents of the ceremonial county.

Water[link]

The medieval Cinque Ports, except for Dover, have all now silted up. The Medway Estuary has been an important port and naval base for 500 years. The River Medway is tidal up to Allington and navigable up to Tonbridge. Kent's two canals are the Royal Military Canal between Hythe and Rye, which still exists, and the Thames and Medway Canal between Strood and Gravesend. Built in 1824, it was purchased in 1846 by the railways, which partially backfilled it.^[15] Container ports are located at Ramsgate and Thamesport.

Railways[link]

A Eurostar train at km 48 on HS1, the High Speed 1, near Strood

The earliest locomotive-driven passenger-carrying railway in Britain was the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway which opened in 1830.^[41] This and the London and Greenwich Railway later merged into South Eastern Railway (SER).^[42] By the 1850s, SER's networks had expanded to Ashford, Ramsgate, Canterbury, Tunbridge Wells, and the Medway towns. SER's major London termini were London Bridge, Charing Cross, and Cannon Street. Kent also had a second major railway, the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR). Originally the East Kent Railway in 1858, it linked the northeast Kent coast with London terminals at Victoria and Blackfriars.

The two companies merged in 1899, forming the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR). In the aftermath of World War I, the government's Railways Act 1921 grouped railway companies together; the SECR joined neighbouring London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) and London and South Western Railway (LSWR) to form the Southern Railway.^[42] Britain's railways were nationalised in 1948, forming British Rail. The railways were privatised in 1996 and most Kent passenger services were franchised to Connex South Eastern.^[43] Following financial difficulties, Connex lost the franchise and was replaced by South Eastern Trains and after Southeastern.^[44]

The Channel Tunnel was completed in 1994 and High Speed 1 in November 2007 with a London terminus at St Pancras. A new station, Ebbsfleet International, opened between Dartford and Gravesend, serving northern Kent.^[45] The high speed lines will be utilised to provide a faster train service to coastal towns like Ramsgate and Folkestone. This station is in addition to the existing station at Ashford International, which has suffered a massive cut in service as a result.

Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway

In addition to the "mainline" railways, there are several light, heritage, and industrial railways in Kent. There are three heritage, standard gauge railways; Spa Valley Railway near Tunbridge Wells on the old Tunbridge Wells West branch, East Kent Railway on the old East Kent coalfield area and the Kent and East Sussex Railway on the Weald around Tenterden. In addition there is the 15-inch (380 mm) gauge, tourist-oriented Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway on the southeast Kent coast along the Dungeness peninsula. Finally, there is the 2 ft 6 in (0.76 m), industrial Sittingbourne & Kemsley Light Railway.

Air[link]

A limited number of charter flights are provided by Kent's Kent International Airport at Manston, and London Ashford Airport at Lydd. However, most passengers across the South East use the larger Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton airports. In 2002, it was revealed that the government was considering building a new four-runway airport on the marshland near the village of Cliffe on the Hoo Peninsula.^[46] This plan was dropped in 2003 following protests by cultural and environmental groups.^[47]

Education[link]

The county has four universities; Canterbury Christ Church University with campuses throughout East Kent, University of Kent, with campuses in Canterbury and Medway, and University of Greenwich (a London University), with sites at Woolwich, Eltham, London and Medway. The University for the Creative Arts (UCA) also has three of its five campuses in the county.

Whereas much of Britain adopted a comprehensive education system in the 1970s, Kent County Council (KCC) and Medway Unitary Authority are among around fifteen^[48] local authorities still providing wholly selective education through the eleven-plus examination with students allocated a place at a secondary modern school or at a grammar school. Together, the two Kent authorities have 38 of the 164 grammar schools remaining in Britain.^[48][49]

KCC has the largest education department of any local authority in Britain,^[50] providing school places for over 289,000 pupils.

For the 2005–06 school year, KCC and Medway introduced a standardised school year, based on six terms, as recommended by the Local Government Association in its 2000 report, "The Rhythms of Schooling".^[52]

Kent County Council LEA maintains 96 secondary schools, of which 33 are selective schools and 63 are secondary modern schools.

National Challenge schools[link]

Kent has the highest number of National Challenge schools in England, schools which are branded "failing" based on the British Government's floor targets that 30% of pupils achieve at least 5 GCSE grades A* to C.^[53] Of the 63 secondary modern schools, 33 achieved below this requirement meaning that 52% of Kent secondary modern schools (34% out of all 96 maintained secondary schools) are failing.^[54]

Local media[link]

Television[link]

Much of Kent is served by the BBC's South East region, which is based in Tunbridge Wells and provides local news for the county and East Sussex. Its commercial rival is ITV Meridian Ltd, which has a newsroom at The Maidstone Studios despite the main studio being based in Hampshire. Main transmitters providing these services are located at West Hougham, near Dover and Bluebell Hill, located between Chatham and Maidstone. Those parts of Kent closer to London such as Gravesend, Dartford and parts of Sevenoaks lie within the ITV London and BBC London areas, taking their television signals from the Crystal Palace transmitter.

The county is also served by two internet-based TV channels, Kent TV (part-owned by Kent County Council) and YourKentTV which is owned by KOS Media.

Radio[link]

Kent has three county-wide stations – BBC Radio Kent, based in Tunbridge Wells; and the commercial stations Heart and Gold, both based in Whitstable and London.

Most of the county is covered by local radio network KMFM, owned by the KM Group. Since March 2012, programmes are the same across all seven stations in the network:

• KMFM Ashford
• KMFM Canterbury
• KMFM Maidstone
• KMFM Medway
• KMFM Shepway and White Cliffs Country
• KMFM Thanet
• KMFM West Kent

The county has five community radio stations.

• BRFM covers the Isle of Sheppey
• SFM covers Sittingbourne
• CSR 97.4FM covers Canterbury, as a joint production between the city's two universities
• Academy FM (Thanet) covers Thanet
• Academy FM (Folkestone) covers Folkestone

A licence has been granted for Radio Sunlight in Gillingham, but no broadcast dates have yet been set.

Dover Community Radio (DCR) offers a podcasting service for the people of Dover district on their website, hoping in the future to apply for a community radio licence to cover the town and its environs.

Newspapers[link]

The KM Group, KOS Media and Kent Regional News and Media all provide local newspapers for most of the large towns and cities. County-wide papers include the Kent Messenger, Kent on Saturday, Kent on Sunday, and the Kent and Sussex Courier.^{[citation needed]}

See also[link]

	Geography portal
	Europe portal
	United Kingdom portal
	England portal
	South East England portal
32x28px	Kent portal

• Outline of England
• Duke of Kent
• List of Lord Lieutenants
• List of High Sheriffs
• Custos Rotulorum of Kent - list of Keepers of the Rolls
• Kent (UK Parliament constituency) - Historical list of MPs for Kent constituency
• Kent Community Network
• List of people from Kent
• List of places in Kent
• List of tourist attractions in Kent
• List of civil parishes in Kent
• List of fire stations in Kent
• List of windmills in Kent
• Recreational walks in Kent
• Thames Gateway – includes details of regeneration projects in the northern areas of Kent
• Thanet
• Category:Towns in Kent
• Category:Villages in Kent
• River Thames

References[link]

External links[link]

• Media related to Kent at Wikimedia Commons
• Kent at the Open Directory Project
• Kent Parishes – Forum for History, Genealogy, Ancestry and local information
• Kent County Council – local government website
• Kent Wildlife Trust – Kent Wildlife Trust is the most active conservation trust in the county
• Kent Online – a Kent Messenger Group website
• Camelot Village – Kent heritage
• Kent Downs – Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty website
• CPRE Kent- Kent Branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE)
• historic-kent.co.uk – further information on villages throughout Kent.
• BBC – origins of Kent placenames
• Kent Coast in Pictures – photographs of the coastline of Kent.
• Kent County Cricket Club
• Official Kent Tourism Guide
• Official Heart of Kent Tourism Guide
• BBC feature on the Kent eleven-plus
• Kent-Weather – A county-wide weather forecasting website.

Neighbouring English counties and French department

	Greater London	Essex	Thames Estuary
	Surrey		North Sea
		Kent    East
	West Sussex	East Sussex	English Channel Pas de Calais, France

Coordinates: 51°11′N 0°44′E / 51.19°N 0.73°E / 51.19; 0.73

Unsuk Chin (born July 14, 1961), is a South Korean composer of classical music, based in Berlin, Germany. She was awarded the Grawemeyer Award in 2004, the Arnold Schönberg Prize in 2005 and the Music Composition Prize of the Prince Pierre Foundation in 2010.

Biography[link]

Unsuk Chin was born in Seoul, Korea. She studied composition with Sukhi Kang at Seoul National University and won several international prizes in her early 20s. She studied with György Ligeti in Hamburg 1985-1988. Ligeti dismissed Chin's early pieces as unoriginal, which led her to stop composing for a few years. In 1988 Unsuk Chin moved to Berlin, where she worked for years as a freelance composer at the Electronic music studio of the Technical University of Berlin, realizing seven works. Her first large orchestral piece, Troerinnen, was premiered by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in 1990. In 1991, her breakthrough work Acrostic Wordplay was premiered by the Nieuw Ensemble - since then it has been performed in 15 countries in Europe, Asia and North America. Chin's collaboration with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, which has led to several commissions from the latter, started in 1994 with Fantaisie mecanique. Since 1995, Unsuk Chin is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes. In 1999, Chin began an artistic collaboration with Kent Nagano, who has since premiered five of her works.

Chin's Violin Concerto, for which she was awarded the Grawemeyer, was premiered in 2002 by Viviane Hagner. Since then it has been programmed in Europe, Asia and North America, and performed, among others, by Christian Tetzlaff, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Simon Rattle in 2005.

Unsuk Chin's works have been performed by conductors such as Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Neeme Järvi, Peter Eötvös, David Robertson and George Benjamin as well as by leading orchestras and ensembles. Commissioners include the Kronos Quartet, Radio France, the BBC, the London Sinfonietta, South Bank Centre, Los Angeles Opera, IRCAM and the Bavarian State Opera. Chin's music has been highlighted at major music festivals such as Festival Musica in Strasbourg or Settembre Musica in Italy.

2001/2002 Unsuk Chin was appointed composer-in-residence at Deutschen Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; since 2006 she holds the position of Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra's composer-in-residence and Artistic Director of its Contemporary Music Series.

2007 Chin's first opera Alice in Wonderland was premiered at Bavarian State Opera.

Unsuk Chin was a featured composer in the 2009 Suntory Summer Festival in Tokyo which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Suntory Music Foundation. The festival culminated with the world premiere of Šu, a concerto for Chinese sheng and orchestra. The work was commissioned by Suntory Hall International Programme, ZaterdagMatinée, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Essen Philharmonie, and was composed for sheng virtuoso Wu Wei. The world premiere on 28 August featured the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kazuyoshi Akiyama.^[1]

Awards and recognition[link]

• 1984 International Rostrum of Composers for the chamber music work Gestalten
• 1985 First Prize of Gaudeamus Foundation for Spektra
• 1993 First Prize at the Contest for Orchestra Works to Commemorate the Semicentennial for the Tokyo Government
• 1997 First Prize for Contemporary Piano Music at the Concours International de Piano d'Orléans for the Piano Studies Nos. 2-4
• 1999 First Prize at Concours Internationaux de Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges for Xi
• 2004 Grawemeyer Award for Violin Concerto
• 2005 Arnold Schönberg Prize
• 2010 Music Composition Prize of the Prince Pierre Foundation for Gougalōn

Works[link]

Unsuk Chin doesn't regard her music as belonging to any specific culture.^[2] Chin names Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Anton Webern, Iannis Xenakis, and György Ligeti,^[3] among others, as 20th century composers of special importance for her. Chin regards her working experience with Electronic music and her preoccupation with Balinese Gamelan as influential for her work. The colour of her music might perhaps be explained through Chin's affinity for non-European music. However, Chin has also clearly been influenced by musical modernism.^{[citation needed]} In her orchestral work Miroirs des temps Chin has also used compositional concepts of Medieval composers, such as Machaut and Ciconia, by employing and evolving techniques such as musical palindromes and crab canons.

Characteristic for Unsuk Chin's music is a fascination with virtuosity, which is reflected in the difficulty of her works. Virtuosity is an important feature also in Chin's electronic pieces such as Gradus ad infinitum for 8 pianos. In general, Chin doesn't prefer to make a strong distinction between electronic and instrumental music.^{[citation needed]} A dominant aspect of Chin's work is playfulness. In some pieces, theatrical actions are employed: e.g. in Allegro ma non troppo for percussion and tape, in Cantatrix Sopranica for voices and ensemble and in Double Bind? for violin and electronics.^{[citation needed]}

The texts of Chin's vocal music are often based on experimental poetry, and occasionally they are self-referential, employing techniques such as acrostics, anagrams and palindromes, all of which are also reflected in the compositional structure.^{[citation needed]} Consequently, Chin has set music to poems by writers such as Inger Christensen, Harry Matthews, Gerhard Rühm or Unica Zürn into music, and the title of Cantatrix Sopranica is derived from a Nonsens treatise by Georges Perec. However, in Kalá Chin has also composed works with less experimental texts by writers such as Gunnar Ekelöf, Paavo Haavikko, and Arthur Rimbaud, and Troerinnen is based on a play by Euripides.

Playful aspects are dominant also in Chin's opera Alice in Wonderland, which is based on Lewis Carroll's classic. The opera's libretto was written by David Henry Hwang and the composer. The Munich production, which has been released on DVD by Unitel, was directed by Achim Freyer, and it was selected 'Premiere of the Year' by an international critics' poll, which was conducted in 2007 by the German opera magazine "Opernwelt".^{[citation needed]}

Quotations[link]

My music is a reflection of my dreams. I try to render into music the visions of immense light and of an incredible magnificence of colours that I see in all my dreams, a play of light and colours floating through the room and at the same time forming a fluid sound sculpture. Its beauty is very abstract and remote, but it is for these very qualities that it addresses the emotions and can communicate joy and warmth. ~ Unsuk Chin^[4]

List of works (selection)[link]

• Troerinnen (1986/1990) for 3 sopranos, women's choir und orchestra, after Euripides
• Gradus ad Infinitum for 8 pianos (1989/1990) for tape
• Akrostichon-Wortspiel (1991/93) for soprano and ensemble
• Fantaisie mécanique (1994/1997) für trumpet, trombone, two percussions and piano
• Piano Studies (1995-)
• ParaMetaString (1995) for string quartet and electronics
• Piano Concerto (1996-97)
• Xi (1998) for ensemble and electronics
• Miroirs des temps (1999/2000) for 4 singers and orchestra
• Kalá (2000-01) for soprano, bass, mixed choir and orchestra
• Violin concerto (2001)
• Double Concerto for piano, percussion and ensemble (2002)
• snagS&Snarls for soprano and orchestra (2004)
• Scenes from Alice in Wonderland for soprano, mezzo-soprano and orchestra (2004-07/2010-11)
• Cantatrix Sopranica für two sopranos, countertenor and ensemble (2005)
• Double Bind? for violin and live electronics (2006-7)
• Alice in Wonderland (Opera; 2004-2007)
• Rocaná for orchestra (2008)
• Cello Concerto (2009)
• Šu for sheng and orchestra (2009)
• Gougalōn. Scenes from a Street Theater for Ensemble (2009/2011)
• Fanfare chimérique for two spatially distributed wind ensembles and live electronics (2010/2011)
• cosmigimmicks. A musical pantomime for seven instrumentalists (2012)

Recordings[link]

• Unsuk Chin: Akrostichon – Wortspiel and other works. Ensemble Intercontemporain. CD. Deutsche Grammophon, 2005
• Unsuk Chin: Alice in Wonderland. Bayerische Staatsoper, Kent Nagano. DVD. Unitel, 2008
• Allegro ma non troppo. In: Fifty Years Studio TU Berlin. EMF Media, DVD 054, 2008
• Unsuk Chin: Rocaná, Violin Concerto. Viviane Hagner, Kent Nagano, Montreal Symphony Orchestra. CD. Analekta, 2009.
• Cantatrix Sopranica. In: Sprechgesänge - Speech Songs. musikFabrik, Stefan Asbury. CD. Wergo, 2010.
• Unsuk Chin: Xi and other works. (reissue of Akrostichon-Wortspiel CD). Ensemble Intercontemporain. CD. Kairos, 2011.

Sources[link]

• Stefan Drees (ed): Im Spiegel der Zeit. Die Komponistin Unsuk Chin. Schott (Mainz) 2011.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Portrait of the composer
• Boosey & Hawkes: Unsuk Chin Website of the composer
• Paul Griffiths: An introduction to the music of Unsuk Chin
• Hanno Ehrler: Ordnung, Chaos und Computer – Die Komponistin Unsuk Chin
• Arnold Whittall: Unsuk Chin in focus: Meditations & mechanics
• Interview with the composer
• (French) A biography of Unsuk Chin, from IRCAM's website.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2009)

The London Sinfonietta is an English chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble specialises in contemporary music and works across a wide range of genres, performing modern classics alongside world premieres, and includes music by electronica artists as well as folk and jazz musicians. Through regular collaborations with choreographers, video artists and film-makers, the ensemble places new music at the heart of contemporary culture, reaching out to new audiences and embracing the technical challenges of pushing musical boundaries.

Directors[link]

Nicholas Snowman and David Atherton founded the orchestra in 1968. Atherton was its first Music Director, from 1968-1973. Michael Vyner served as the Artistic Director from 1972-1989. Paul Crossley took over and served from 1988-1994. Markus Stenz served as Music Director from 1994-1998. The composer Oliver Knussen was Music Director from 1998–2002 and is now the Sinfonietta's Conductor Laureate. The Artistic Director of the ensemble from 1998-2006 was Gillian Moore following 10 years as the ensemble's Education Officer.

Repertoire[link]

The ensemble has commissioned and performed many works by both emerging and established composers. Its list of over 200 commissions reaches from its early support of Harrison Birtwistle, Iannis Xenakis and Luciano Berio to the more recent additions of Magnus Lindberg, Thomas Adès, George Benjamin, Steve Reich, Tansy Davies, Dai Fujikura, Jonny Greenwood, Django Bates, Roberto Carnevale, Kenneth Hesketh and Mark-Anthony Turnage. In August 1969 the ensemble premiered John Tavener's The Whale. In 1970 it recorded the work for The Beatles' label Apple Records.

Ethos[link]

The London Sinfonietta consciously aims to blur the boundaries between an artistic experience and an educational one, acknowledging that much of its work – whether on the platform or off – embraces an element of both. This results in an innovative strand of collaborative work with young artists, enabling the ensemble to introduce its music to new audiences and partners.

London Sinfonietta concert performances are increasingly being conceived as the centrepiece of a cluster of related projects and events. These often combine new technology and new media with live music-making in both educational and performance contexts, giving a platform for artistic work inspired by the ensemble’s repertoire.

Innovative ways of promoting contemporary music to new audiences include collaborations with Warp Records (with concerts seen by over 25,000 people across Europe) and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead. The ensemble’s young ambassadors scheme won the 2006 Royal Philharmonic Society Audience Development award for its success in bringing large and diverse audiences to performances of Luigi Nono and Iannis Xenakis among others.

Residence and Festivals[link]

The ensemble is a resident ensemble of the Southbank Centre, where it performs much of its London season under both its Conductor Laureate Oliver Knussen and guest conductors such as Diego Masson, Pierre-André Valade, Martyn Brabbins and George Benjamin. Since August 2008, the ensemble's headquarters have been based at the new Kings Place complex in Kings Cross, London, also home to the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and The Guardian. The ensemble has been performing concerts at the venue since October 2008.^[1] The London Sinfonietta is also a regular fixture at the BBC Proms. Concerts in London are complemented by a busy national and international touring schedule, with a priority of taking the best of British and international music to venues and festivals worldwide.

Recording[link]

An acclaimed discography includes seminal recordings of many 20th-century classics, including the premiere recording of Hans Werner Henze's song cycle Voices under the baton of the composer. The orchestra was featured on EMI's 1988 3-CD authentic recording of Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat. It has recently been expanded by releases on the London Sinfonietta Label, focussing on live performances of otherwise unavailable repertoire. These CDs include 50th birthday tributes to Oliver Knussen, and Toru Takemitsu’s Arc and Green. Between 2006 and 2009, the London Sinfonietta Label in conjunction with the Jerwood Foundation and NMC Recordings released the Jerwood Series: 6 CDs featuring London Sinfonietta players' performances of new compositions by young composers, which include Richard Causton, Dai Fujikura, Ian Vine and Larry Goves.^[2] In 2006 a collaboration with Warp Records, featuring recordings of the music of Warp Records artists, such as Aphex Twin, as well as modern classical music composers, such as John Cage, was released as Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters.

London Sinfonietta Label[link]

The London Sinfonietta Label is the official record label of the London Sinfonietta. To date, nine recordings have been released, including Arc and Green by Tōru Takemitsu, a 50th birthday tribute to Oliver Knussen, Cyclops 2000/A Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky by Charles Wuorinen, and the 6 CDs in the Jerwood Series, a project supported by the Jerwood Foundation which showcases new works by young and emerging contemporary composers.

All recordings on the London Sinfonietta Label are distributed and sold in partnership with NMC Recordings, a British label which specialises in recordings by living composers.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official web site

Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel in 1912
Born	Joseph Maurice Ravel (1875-03-07)March 7, 1875 Ciboure, France
Died	December 28, 1937(1937-12-28) (aged 62) Paris, France
Resting place	Levallois-Perret
Nationality	French
Occupation	Composer
Partner	None
Relatives	Marie Delouart, Joseph Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 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".^[1]

According to SACEM, Ravel's estate earns more royalties than that of any other French composer. According to the law of most countries (including all members of the World Trade Organization), Ravel's works have been in the public domain since January 1, 2008, in most countries.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Birthplace of Maurice Ravel in Ciboure

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.^[2] 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.^[3] 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.^[4] Ravel substantiated his father's early influence by stating later, “As a child, I was sensitive to music—to every kind of music.”^[5]

Ravel was very fond of his mother, and her Basque-Spanish heritage was a strong influence on his life and music. Among his earliest memories are folk songs she sang to him.^[6] 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.^[6] At age six, Maurice began piano lessons with Henry Ghys and received his first instruction in harmony, counterpoint, and composition with Charles-René. His earliest public piano recital was in 1889 at age fourteen.^[7]

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.^[8] 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.^[9] The students shared an appreciation for Richard Wagner, the Russian school, and the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and Stéphane Mallarmé.^[10]

The Conservatoire and early career[link]

Théâtre du Conservatoire, Paris: in Ravel's day, home to the Conservatoire de Paris

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.^[11] 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.^[11] Around 1893, Ravel created his earliest compositions, and he was introduced by his father to the café pianist Erik Satie, whose distinctive personality and unorthodox musical experiments proved influential.^[10]

Ravel was not a "bohemian" and evidenced little of the typical trauma of adolescence. At twenty years of age, Ravel was already "self-possessed, a little aloof, intellectually biased, given to mild banter."^[12] 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".^[13] His large head seemed suitably matched to his great intellect. He was well-read and later accumulated a library of over 1,000 volumes.^[13] In his younger adulthood, Ravel was usually bearded in the fashion of the day, though later he dispensed with all whiskers. Though reserved, Ravel was sensitive and self-critical, and had a mischievous sense of humor.^[12] He became a life-long tobacco smoker in his youth, and he enjoyed strongly flavored meals, fine wine, and spirited conversation.^[14]

After failing to meet the requirement of earning a competitive medal in three consecutive years, Ravel was expelled in 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.^[15] 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.^[16] 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."^[17] 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.^[18]

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.^[19] In 1899, Ravel conducted his first orchestral piece, Shéhérazade, and was greeted by a raucous mixture of boos and applause. Critics termed the piece "a jolting debut: a clumsy plagiarism of the Russian School" and called Ravel a “mediocrely gifted debutante ... who will perhaps become something if not someone in about ten years, if he works hard.”^[20] 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.^[21]

	Pavane pour une infante défunte noicon Performed by Thérèse Dussaut.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

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".^[22] 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.^[23] 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 in 1902.^[24]

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.^[25] One of Ravel's submitted 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.^[26] In 1905, Ravel's final year of eligibility for the Prix de Rome, Ravel did not even pass the preliminary test, despite being favored to win one of the two first prizes available.^[27] Instead, all six selected finalists were students of Charles Lenepveu, a member of the jury and heir apparent of Dubois as director of the Conservatoire. The scandal – 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 instead of Lenepveu, a vindication of sorts for Ravel.^[28] Alfred Edwards, editor of Le Matin, who had taken particular interest in the incident, took Ravel on a seven-week canal trip on his yacht Aimée through the Low Countries in June and July 1905, the first time Ravel traveled abroad.^[29] 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".^[30]

Ravel and Debussy[link]

Ravel met Debussy in 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.^[31] In 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.^[25]

The two musicians also appreciated much the same musical heritage and operated in the same artistic milieu, but they differed in terms of personality and their approach to music. Debussy was considered more spontaneous and casual in his composing while Ravel was more attentive to form and craftsmanship.^[32] 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.^[33]

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.”^[34] Ravel further stated, “I think I have always personally followed a direction opposed to that of the symbolism of Debussy.”^[15]

They admired each other’s music and Ravel even played Debussy’s work in public on occasion. However, Ravel did criticize Debussy sometimes, particularly regarding his orchestration, and he once said, "If I had the time, I would reorchestrate La mer."^[32]

By 1905, factions formed for each composer and the two groups began feuding in public. Disputes arose as to questions of chronology about their respective works and who influenced whom. The public tension caused personal estrangement.^[35] As Ravel said, “It is probably better after all for us to be on frigid terms for illogical reasons.”^[33] Ravel stoically absorbed superficial comparisons with Debussy promulgated by biased critics, including Pierre Lalo, an anti-Ravel critic who stated, “Where M. Debussy is all sensitivity, M. Ravel is all insensitivity, borrowing without hesitation not only technique but the sensitivity of other people.”^[35] During 1913, in a remarkable coincidence, both Ravel and Debussy independently produced and published musical settings for poems by Stéphane Mallarmé, again provoking comparisons of their work and their perceived influence on each other, which continued even after Debussy’s death five years later.^[36]

Early major works[link]

Ravel in 1906 (photograph by Pierre Petit)

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.”^[37] Next was his Histoires naturelles (Nature Stories), five humorous songs evoking the presence of five animals.^[38] 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.^[39] It premiered in 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".^[40] 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.^[41] 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.^[42] 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.^[43] 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). In 1910, the society presented the premiere of Ravel’s Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose) in its original piano duet version.^[44] With this work, Ravel followed in the tradition of Schumann, Mussorgsky, and Debussy, who also created memorable works of childhood themes. In 1912, Ravel's Ma mère l'oye was performed as a ballet (with added music) after being first transcribed from piano to orchestra.^[45] Looking to expand his contacts and career, Ravel made his first foreign tours to England and Scotland during 1909 and 1911.^[46]

[edit] 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.^[45] Daphnis et Chloé took three years to complete, with conflicts constantly arising among the principal artists, including Léon Bakst (sets and costumes), Michel Fokine (libretto), and Ravel (music).^[47] 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".^[48] 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.^[49] 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.^[50] 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.^[51]

War years[link]

Although he considered his small stature (1.61 m)^[52] 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.^[53] Instead, he became a truck driver stationed at the Verdun front.^[54] At one point Ravel's unit engaged a German unit that included a young Adolf Hitler.^[55] With his mother’s death in 1917, his fondest relationship ended and he fell into 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 in 1919.^[56] 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.^[56] During the war, the Ligue Nationale pour la Defense de la Musique Française (National League for the Defense of French Music) was formed but Ravel, despite his strong antipathy for the German aggression, declined to join stating:

“it would be dangerous for French composers to ignore systematically the works of their foreign colleagues, and thus form themselves into a sort of national coterie: our musical art, so rich at the present time, would soon degenerate and become isolated by its own academic formulas.”^[54]

Ravel was exhausted and lacking creative spirit at the war’s end in 1918. With the death of Debussy and the emergence of Satie, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky, modern classical music had a new style to which Ravel would shortly re-group and make his contribution.^[57]

1920s[link]

Ravel's house in Montfort-l'Amaury, where the composer lived from 1921 until his death

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.^[58] Subsequently, it became a popular concert work and when the two men met again in 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.^[59]

In 1920, the French government awarded Ravel the Légion d'honneur, but he refused it.^[60] The next year, he retired to the French countryside where he continued to write music, albeit even less prolifically, but in more tranquil surroundings.^[61] 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.^[62] 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.”^[63] In 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.^[63]

The English, in particular, lauded Ravel, as The Times reported April 16, 1923, “Since the death of Debussy, he has represented to English musicians the most vigorous current in modern French music."^[63] In reality, however, Ravel’s own music was no longer considered au courant in France. Satie had become the inspiring force for the new generation of French composers known as Les Six.^[64] Ravel was fully aware of this, and was mostly effective in preventing a serious breach between his generation of musicians and the younger group.^[64]

In post-war Paris, American musical influence was strong. Jazz particularly was played in the cafes and became popular, and French composers including Ravel and Darius Milhaud were applying jazz elements to their work.^[18] Also in vogue was a return to simplicity in orchestration and a transition from the great scale of the works of Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev were in the ascendant, and Arnold Schoenberg's experiments were leading music into atonality.^[65] 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.^[65]

Around 1922, Ravel completed his famous orchestral arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky, which through its widespread popularity brought Ravel great fame and substantial profit.^[18] The first half of the 1920s was a particularly lean period for composing but Ravel did complete successful concert tours to Amsterdam, Milan, London, Madrid, and Vienna, which also boosted his fame. By 1925, by virtue of the unwelcomed pressure of a performance deadline, he finally finished his opera L'enfant et les sortilèges, with its significant jazz and ragtime accents. Famed writer Colette provided the libretto.^[66] Around this time, he also completed Chansons madécasses, the summit of his vocal art.^[67]

In 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.^[68] 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.^[69]

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.^[70]

American tour[link]

Ravel at the piano, accompanied by Canadian singer Éva Gauthier, during his American tour, March 7, 1928. Third from right (standing) is conductor-composer Manoah Leide-Tedesco. At far right is George Gershwin.

After two months of planning, in 1928 Ravel made a four-month concert tour in North America, for a promised minimum of $10,000^[68] (approximately $135,349, adjusted for inflation^[71]). In New York City, he received a standing ovation, unlike any of his unenthusiastic premieres in Paris. His all-Ravel concert in Boston was equally acclaimed.^[72] 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.”^[73] Ravel conducted most of the leading orchestras in the U.S. from coast to coast and visited twenty-five cities.^[74]

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.^[75] 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?"^[76] 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.^[77]

Final years[link]

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”.^[78] 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.”^[79] 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.^[79] A public dispute began with conductor Arturo Toscanini. The Italian maestro, taking liberties with Ravel’s strict instructions, conducted the piece at a faster tempo and with an “accelerando at the finish”. Ravel insisted “I don’t ask for my music to be interpreted, but only that it should be played.” In the end, the feuding only helped to increase the work’s fame. A Hollywood film titled Bolero (1934), starring Carole Lombard and George Raft, made major use of the theme.^[80] 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.^[81] 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.”^[82] 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.”^[83] In 1933, Wittgenstein played the work in concert for the first time to instant acclaim.^[84] Critic Henry Prunières wrote, “From the opening measures, we are plunged into a world in which Ravel has but rarely introduced us.”^[84]

The other piano concerto was completed a year later. Its lighter tone follows the models of Mozart, Domenico Scarlatti, and Saint-Saëns, and also makes use of jazz-like themes.^[85] 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 in 1932.^[86] 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.”^[84]

Illness and death[link]

In 1932, Ravel suffered a major blow to the head in a taxi accident. This injury was not considered serious at the time.^[87] However, afterwards he began to experience aphasia-like symptoms and was frequently absent-minded.^[88] 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.^[87]

On April 8, 2008, the New York Times published an article suggesting Ravel may have been in the early stages of frontotemporal dementia during 1928, and this might account for the repetitive nature of Boléro.^[89] 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.^[90] 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, evidently with some hesitation. On December 17, he entered a hospital in Paris, following the advice of the well-known neurosurgeon Clovis Vincent. Vincent assumed there was brain tumor, and on December 19 operated on Ravel. No tumor was found, but there was some shrinkage of the left hemisphere of his brain, which was re-inflated with serous fluid. When Ravel awoke from the anaesthesia, he asked for his brother, but quickly sank into a deep coma, from which he never awoke.^[91] He died on December 28, at the age of 62, in Paris.

Ravel's death was probably 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.^[92] This confusion may arise because his friend George Gershwin had died from a brain tumor only five months earlier.

On December 30, 1937, Ravel was buried next to his parents in a granite tomb at the cemetery at Levallois-Perret, a suburb of northwest Paris.

Personal life[link]

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.^[93] 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.'^[94] He is quoted as saying "The only love affair I have ever had was with music".^[95] 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 memoirs, Misia hid all these facts.^[96]

In his Maurice Ravel: A Life, published in 2000, biographer Benjamin Ivry presents evidence in support of his thesis that Ravel's lack of known intimate relationships may be explained if he was a "very secretive" gay man. Ivry also attempts to illustrate examples where Ravel's sexuality may have been expressed in his musical compositions. In his review^[97] of Ivry's biography for Library Journal Larry Lipkis is persuaded by Ivry's research that, "There seems to be little question that Ravel was an affected, intensely secretive dandy with gay inclinations," but also expresses the view that Ivry's work is less persuasive in definitively linking Ravel's sexuality to characteristics of his musical oeuvre.

Legacy[link]

Many of Ravel's works are protected by copyright and due to various posthumous extensions will remain so until 2032 in the EU and US. The composer died childless and left everything to his brother Edouard who turned Ravel's house into a museum. Edouard was severely injured in a car accident in 1954 and required near constant care. In 1957, Edouard announced his intention to deed 80% of the composer's posthumous royalties to the city of Paris and endow a Nobel Prize in music.

Instead, Edouard consigned the rights to his nurse, Jeanne Taverne, and her husband Alexandre, a chauffer. When Edouard Ravel died in 1960, the Ravel estate fell subject to extensive litigation for ten years, reaching France's highest appellate court. Jeanne Taverne died before the litigation ended. During this period, Jean-Jacques Lemoine, the legal director of SACEM (the organization that collects and distributes royalties in France), froze distribution of Ravel's account.

When the litigation concluded, Lemoine resigned from SACEM and set up a shell company, Arima, with Alexandre Taverne for collecting Ravel's royalties. The company is based in Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands in order to avoid French taxes. The two also sued Ravel's publisher, then nearing retirement, to re-write the original contracts, consigning a greater percentage of the royalties to Arima than Durand's publisher. Since that time, the shell company has collected at least £30m and none of Ravel's estate has gone to the Ravel family or to further the cause of French music.^[98]

Musicality[link]

Musical sources[link]

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."^[99]

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.^[100]

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."^[101] 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.^[12] Or, as Viñes put it, discussing Ravel's aesthetics (not his religion):

"He is, moreover, very complicated, there being in him a mixture of Middle Ages Catholicism and satanic impiety, but also a love of Art and Beauty which guide him and which make him react candidly."^[101]

Certain aspects of his music can be considered to belong to the tradition of 18th-century French classicism beginning with Couperin and Rameau as in Le Tombeau de Couperin. The uniquely 19th-century French sensibilities of Fauré and Chabrier are reflected in Sérénade grotesque, Pavane pour une infante défunte, and Menuet antique, while pieces such as Jeux d'eau, and the String Quartet in F owe something to the innovations of Satie and Debussy. The virtuosity and poetry of Gaspard de la nuit and Concerto for the left hand hint at Liszt and Chopin. His admiration for American jazz is echoed in L'enfant et les sortilèges, the Violin Sonata and the Piano Concerto in G, while the Russian school of music inspired homage in "À la manière de Borodin" and the orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Additionally, he variously cited Mozart, Saint-Saëns, Schubert and Schoenberg as inspirations for various pieces.

Musical style[link]

Ravel's music was innovative, though he did not follow the contemporary trend towards atonality, as pioneered by Schoenberg. Instead, he applied the aesthetics of the new French school of Chabrier, Satie, and particularly Debussy. Ravel's compositions rely upon modal melodies instead of using the major or minor scales for their predominant harmonic language. He preferred modes with major or minor flavors; for example, the Mixolydian instead of the major scale, and the Aeolian instead of the harmonic minor. As a result, there are virtually no leading tones in his output. Melodically, he tended to favor two modes: the Dorian and the Phrygian.^[102] 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."^[102]

In no way dependent on exclusively traditional modal practices, Ravel used extended harmonies and intricate modulations. He was fond of chords of the ninth and eleventh, and his characteristic harmonies are largely the result of a fondness for unresolved appoggiaturas, such as in the Valses nobles et sentimentales.^[103] He was inspired by various dances, his favorite being the minuet, composing the Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn in 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.^[104] 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.^[105]

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.^[106] Ravel also imitates Paganini's and Liszt's virtuoso gypsy themes and technique in Tzigane.^[107] 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.^[108] 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.^[109] 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."^[110] 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.^[111]

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.^[112]

Methods[link]

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.^[113] Ravel, who sometimes spent years refining a piece, said, “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.”^[114]

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.”^[113]

Many of his most innovative compositions were developed first as piano music. Ravel used this miniaturist approach to build up his architecture with many finely wrought strokes. To fill the requirements of larger works, he multiplied the number of small building blocks.^[109] This demonstrates the great regard he had for the piano traditions of Couperin, Scarlatti, Mozart, Chopin and Liszt.^[115] For example, Gaspard de la nuit can be viewed as an extension of Liszt’s virtuosity and advanced harmonics.^[116] 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.^[115]

Ravel’s great regard as an orchestrator is also based on his thorough methods. He usually notated the string parts first and insisted that the string section “sound perfectly in and of itself”.^[117] 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.^[118]

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.^[119] When a piece would not progress, he would abandon a piece until inspired anew.^[120] 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.^[5] Though wide-ranging in his music, Ravel avoided the symphonic form as well as religious themes and forms.^[121]

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.^[119]

Pianist and conductor[link]

Though a competent pianist, Ravel decided early on to have virtuosi, like Ricardo Viñes, premiere and perform his work. As his career evolved, however, Ravel was again called upon to play his own piano music, and to conduct his larger works, particularly during a tour, both of which he considered chores in the same mold as "circus performances". Only rarely did he conduct works of other composers.^[122] 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."^[123] As to how his music was to be played, Ravel was always clear and direct with his instructions.^[123]

Transcriber and orchestrator[link]

Ravel was and is a leading figure in the art of transcription and orchestration. During his life Ravel studied the ability of each orchestral instrument carefully in order to determine its possible effects while being sensitive to individual color and timbre.^[17] Ravel regarded orchestration as a task separate from composition, involving distinct technical skills. He was always careful to ensure that the writing for each family of instruments worked in isolation as well as in the complete ensemble. While he disapproved of tampering with his own works once completed, orchestration gave him the opportunity to view works in a different context.^[16] Among the most famous of his orchestral transcriptions is his own Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917) of which he orchestrated the Prelude, Forlane, Minuet, and Rigaudon movements in 1919. The orchestral version clarifies the harmonic language of the suite and brings sharpness to its classical dance rhythms. Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is best known through its orchestration by Ravel. In this version, produced in 1922, Ravel omits the Promenade between "Samuel" Goldenberg und "Schmuÿle" and Limoges and applies artistic license to some particulars of dynamics and notation as well as putting forth the virtuoso effort of a master colourist throughout.

Musical influence[link]

Ravel was always a supporter of young musicians, through his society and associations and through his personal individual advice and his help in securing performance dates. His closest students included Maurice Delage, Manuel Rosenthal, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Alexis Roland-Manuel and Vlado Perlemuter.^[93] Ravel modeled his teaching methods after his own teacher Gabriel Fauré, avoiding formulas and emphasizing individualism. Ravel's preferred way of teaching would be to have a conversation with his students and demonstrate his points at the piano. He was rigorous and demanding in teaching counterpoint and fugue, as he revered Johann Sebastian Bach without reservation. But in all other areas, he considered Mozart the ideal, with the perfect balance between "classical symmetry and the element of surprise", and with works of clarity, perfect craftsmanship, and measured amounts of lyricism. Often Ravel would challenge a student with "What would Mozart do?" and then ask the student to invent his own solution.^[124]

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, 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.^[125] Despite what he considered its technical deficiencies, Ravel was a strong advocate of Russian music and praised its spontaneity, orchestral color, and exoticism.^[126]

Notable compositions[link]

Media depictions[link]

• Canadian filmmaker Larry Weinstein has produced two documentaries about Ravel, Ravel (1987)^[127] and Ravel's Brain (2001).^[128] 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[link]

Ballet portal

• Compositions by Maurice Ravel
• Expressionism
• Impressionist music
• Ravel scale