Jorge Donn in 1977

Jorge Donn, born in El Palomar, Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 25 February 1947, was an internationally-known ballet dancer, he was best known for his work with the Maurice Béjart's Ballet company, and his participation as lead dancer in Claude Lelouch's film Les Uns et les Autres. He died of AIDS on 30 November 1992 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

External links[link]

• Jorge Donn at the Internet Movie Database
• Unofficial Site

Maurice Béjart
Béjart in 1988
Born	Maurice Jean Béjart (1927-01-01)1 January 1927 Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
Died	22 November 2007(2007-11-22) (aged 80) Lausanne, Switzerland
Occupation	Dancer, choreographer and opera director

Maurice Jean Béjart (1 January 1927 – 22 November 2007) was a French-born dancer, Swiss choreographer and opera director who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He was the son of the French philosopher Gaston Berger.

Biography[link]

He was born in Marseille, France in 1927. Fascinated by a recital of Serge Lifar, he decided to devote himself entirely to dance. In South France days, he had studied under Mathilde Kschessinska. In 1945, he enrolled as a corps de ballet at the Opéra de Marseille. From 1946, he had studied under Madam Rousanne (Sarkissian), Leo Staats, Madam Lyubov Egorova and Olga Preobrajenska at "Studio Wacker," and etc. in Paris. In 1948, he was also formed with Janine Charrat, Yvette Chauvire and then with Roland Petit, in addition he had studied under Vera Volkova at London^[1][2][3].

In 1954, he founded the Ballet de l'Étoile company (dissolved in 1957). In 1960 he founded the Ballet du XXe Siècle in Brussels (dissolved in 1987).

Directing dancers at the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Switzerland, 1988.

In 1987 he moved to Lausanne in Switzerland, where he founded the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, one of the most famous and successful dance companies in the world.

He made significant contribution to the Persian Ballet Repertoire in the late 1960s and 1970s performing at the famous Roudaki Hall in Tehran created under the supervision of the former Empress of Iran, with whom he kept strong ties of friendship over the years.^[4]

Among his works is a thoroughly revised version of The Nutcracker, presumably inspired by his own life story, which he staged in 2000. It still uses Tchaikovsky's original score, but completely scraps the original plot and characters, instead supplying a new story about a boy's efforts to re-connect with his mother. We also are given a look into the boy's strange sexual fantasies. The production design is full of erotic images — some of which are most likely shocking to many, such as wombs and vaginal openings. [2] One of the characters is Marius Petipa, who becomes Mephisto. Another character is called Felix the Cat, presumably after the famous cartoon character. The production has been issued on DVD.

In 2003, he won the Prix Benois de la Danse for lifetime achievement.

Dance schools[link]

Béjart was the founder of several dance schools:

• the Mudra School in Brussels, 1970–1988;
• the Mudra Afrique School in Dakar, 1977–1985;
• the Rudra School in Lausanne, 1992–present.

The Rudra School is still open and is one of the most famous professional dance schools in the world.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Obituary in The Times, 23 November 2007
• Béjart Ballet Lausanne
• Rudra Béjart School
• Obituary in The Guardian UK

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Maya Plisetskaya
Promotional photo of Plisetskaya used by the Bolshoi Ballet.
Born	November 20, 1925 (1925-11-20) (age 86) Moscow, Soviet Union
Occupation	ballerina

Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya (Russian: Ма́йя Миха́йловна Плисе́цкая, transliteration: Majja Michajlovna Pliseckaja), born November 20, 1925 is a Russian ballet dancer, frequently cited as one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century. Maya danced during the Soviet era at the same time as the great Galina Ulanova, and took over from her as prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi in 1960. Maya Plisetskaya is a naturalized Lithuanian and Spanish citizen.

Early life[link]

Maya Plisetskaya was born in Moscow into a prominent Jewish family.^[1] She went to school in Spitzbergen, where her father worked as an engineer and mine director.

In 1938, her father, Michael Plisetski was executed during the Stalinist purges, possibly because he had hired a friend who had been a secretary to Leon Trotsky. Her mother Rachel Messerer-Plisetskaya (aka Ra Messerer), a silent-film actress, was arrested and sent to a labor camp (Gulag) in Kazakhstan,^[2] together with Maya's seven-month old baby brother.^[3] Thereupon Maya was adopted by her maternal aunt, the ballerina Sulamith Messerer, until her mother was released in 1941.^[4]

Maya studied under the great ballerina of imperial school, Elizaveta Gerdt. She first performed at the Bolshoi Theatre when she had just turned 11 years of age. In 1943, she graduated from the choreographic school and joined the Bolshoi Ballet,^[4] where she would perform until 1990.

Career[link]

Maya Plisetskaya

Plisetskaya receives a governmental award from President of Russia Vladimir Putin on 20 November 2000.

Plisetskaya with her husband, Rodion Shchedrin, in 2009

From the beginning, Maya was a different kind of ballerina. She spent very short time in the corps de ballet after graduation and was quickly named a soloist. Her bright red hair and striking looks made her a glamorous figure on and off the stage. Her long arms had a fluidity that to this day remains unmatched; her interpretation of The Dying Swan, a short showcase piece made famous by Anna Pavlova, became Maya's calling card. Maya was known for the height of her jumps, her extremely flexible back, the technical strength of her dancing, and her charisma. She excelled both in adagio and allegro, which is very unusual in dancers.

Despite her acclaim, Maya was not treated well by the Bolshoi management. She was Jewish^[1] in an anti-Semitic climate, her family had been purged during the Stalinist era and her personality was defiant, so she was not allowed to tour outside the country for six years after joining the Bolshoi.^[2] It wasn't until 1959 that Nikita Khrushchev permitted her to travel abroad,^[5] and Plisetskaya could tour internationally. Her ability changed the world of ballet, setting a higher standard for ballerinas both in terms of technical brilliance and dramatic presence.

Maya's most acclaimed roles included Odette-Odile in Swan Lake (1947) and Aurora in Sleeping Beauty (1961). In 1958, she was honoured with the title of the People's Artist of the USSR and married the young composer Rodion Shchedrin, in whose subsequent fame she shared.

After Galina Ulanova left the stage in 1960, Maya Plisetskaya was proclaimed the prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre. In the Soviet screen version of Anna Karenina, she played Princess Tverskaya. In 1971, her husband the composer Rodion Shchedrin wrote a ballet on the same subject, where she would play the leading role. Anna Karenina was also her first attempt at choreography.^[6] Other choreographers who created ballets for her include Yury Grigorovich, Roland Petit, Alberto Alonso, and Maurice Béjart with "Isadora".

In the 1980s, Plisetskaya and Shchedrin spent much time abroad, where she worked as the artistic director of the Rome Opera Ballet in 1984–5, then the Spanish National Ballet of Madrid from 1987–9. At the age of 65, she finally retired from the Bolshoi as a soloist. On her 70th birthday, she debuted in Béjart's piece choreographed for her and entitled "Ave Maya". Since 1994, she has been presiding over the annual international ballet competitions called Maya. In 1996 she was named President of the Imperial Russian Ballet.^[7]

She was forced to be member of the Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public by being threatened with having her passport revoked.^{[citation needed]} When she traveled abroad in the 1960s, the Soviet secret police requested that she encourage the interest of Robert F. Kennedy, which she declined.^[2]

On her 80th birthday, the Financial Times summed up current opinion about Maya in the following words: "She was, and still is, a star, ballet's monstre sacre, the final statement about theatrical glamour, a flaring, flaming beacon in a world of dimly twinkling talents, a beauty in the world of prettiness."^[8] The following year, Emperor Akihito presented to her the Praemium Imperiale, informally considered a Nobel Prize for Art. Later in life while touring in the United States she joined the fight for women's rights.

Awards and honors[link]

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the Russian Wikipedia.

Maya Plisetskaya has been honored on numerous occasions for her skills:^[7]

• First prize, Budapest International Competition (1949)
• Anna Pavlova Prize, Paris Academy of Dance (1962)
• Lenin Prize (1964)
• Hero of Socialist Labour (1985)
• Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (France, 1986)
• Triumph Prize, 2000.
• Praemium Imperiale (Japan, 2006)
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland;
  • 1st class (20 November 2005) - for outstanding contribution to the development of domestic and international choreographic art, many years of creative activity
  • 2nd class (18 November 2000) - for outstanding contribution to the development of choreographic art
  • 3rd class (21 November 1995) - for outstanding contributions to national culture and a significant contribution to contemporary choreographic art
  • 4th class (9 November 2010) - for outstanding contribution to the development of national culture and choreography, many years of creative activity
• Three Orders of Lenin (1967, 1976, 1985)
• Honoured Artist of the RSFSR (1951)
• People's Artist of RSFSR (1956)
• People's Artist of USSR (1959)
• Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France, 1984)
• Great Commander's Cross of the Order for Merits to Lithuania (2003)
• Commander of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (Spain)
• Commander of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas
• Order of the Rising Sun, 3rd class (Japan, 2011)
• Premium "Russian National Olympus" (2000)
• Prince of Asturias Award (2005, Spain)

See also[link]

• List of Russian ballet dancers

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Maya Plisetskaya

Suzanne Farrell and George Balanchine in Don Quixote

Suzanne Farrell (born August 16, 1945) is an eminent 20th century ballerina (often referred to as the greatest American lyric ballerina) and the founder of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

She was born as Roberta Sue Ficker in Cincinnati, and received her early training at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. In 1960 she was selected to study at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet with a Ford Foundation scholarship; she started there in 1960, and joined the New York City Ballet (NYCB) in 1961.

Career[link]

Early career at NYCB[link]

Initially part of the corps de ballet at NYCB, Farrell soon moved on to dancing featured roles. The first ballet choreographed for her was Passage, now Arcade, by John Taras in 1963. Balanchine first paired her with Jacques d' Amboise to choreograph his Meditation, which debuted in Winter 1963. One of her most notable roles was Dulcinea in Balanchine's Don Quixote, which premiered in May 1965. Balanchine performed in the of Don Quixote on opening night.^[1] She re-scaled many ballets and expanded them to a new level of technique. ^[2]In 1965 she was promoted to principal dancer. Her first role in her new title was Agon with Arthur Mitchell at the Paris Opera. George Balanchine quickly fell in love with his "alabaster princess", and created many roles for her. Farrell described learning choreography from Balanchine as a collaborative process, saying, "When Mr. B was working on a ballet, something would just spill out of his body; he could rarely duplicate it, so I tried to see precisely what he wanted the first time."^[3] In 1965 he created Don Quixote, thought to be a valentine to his newest "muse." In 1968 he cast her as the lead in the "Diamonds" section of his three-act plotless ballet "Jewels".

Balanchine was married to the polio-stricken former ballerina Tanaquil LeClerq, however, and Farrell was a Catholic. Though Balanchine divorced LeClerq to pursue Farrell, she instead married fellow dancer Paul Mejia.^[4]

When she married Mejia, another dancer in the company, in 1969, her bond with Balanchine suffered; and they left the New York City Ballet.^{[citation needed]} Invited to Europe (Belgium), Farrell danced for nearly six years with Maurice Bejart's Ballet of the 20th Century. Her debut with the company was in a pas de deux choreographed by Bejart called Bach Sonate.^[5] She eventually returned to Balanchine and the New York City Ballet in 1975. Balanchine continued to create new ballets for her like Chaconne, Mozartiana, Tzigane, and Davidsbundlertanze. Farrell also found herself often paired with the Dane, Peter Martins. Her partnership with Balanchine lasted until his death in April 1983; his last works were solos for Farrell. Farrell retired from the New York City Ballet at age 44 on November 26th, 1989. She performed Sophisticated Lady and Vienna Waltzes. Farrell gave her final bow at State Theater with Lincoln Kirsten by her side.^[6]

Career as a dance teacher[link]

She had an unusually long performing career for a ballerina. Twenty-eight years of an occupation which takes a tremendous physical toll on the body began to come to an end in 1983. She started to develop arthritis in her right hip and despite two years of varied treatments, by 1985 (at the age of 40), her career on stage was almost over. She struggled for several years, but retired from performing in 1989.

She then moved on to passing on the ballets of Balanchine to the next generation of ballet dancers, working with famed companies around the world, such as those in Berlin and Vienna, as well as the Paris Opera Ballet, Kirov Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet. In 1993, the New York City Ballet dismissed her from her teaching position with the company.^[7] In 2000 Farrell became a professor in the Dance Department at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.

Career at the Kennedy Center[link]

In 2000 Suzanne Farrell started her own company, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, now a full-fledged company produced by the Kennedy Center.

Farrell's engagement with the Kennedy Center began in 1993 and 1994, when the Center offered two series of ballet master classes for students with Farrell. This series provided intermediate-to-advanced level ballet students, ages 13 to 17, an opportunity to study with one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century. Due to the uniqueness of Farrell's place in the ballet world and the quality of her teaching, the Kennedy Center expanded the program to a national level in 1995 in order to fulfill the Center's mission to enhance the arts education of America's young people. Farrell’s students learned to "turn up the technicolor in [their] movement," in order to achieve greater amplification in their dancing.^[3] This three weeks' long yearly initiative of intense study grew into a full-fledged program, Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell.

In the fall of 1999, Farrell received critical acclaim for the successful Kennedy Center engagement and East Coast tour of Suzanne Farrell Stages the Masters of 20th century Ballet. Following the Kennedy Center's debut, the newly named Suzanne Farrell Ballet, a group of professional dancers hand selected by Farrell, has since performed at the Kennedy Center during engagements in 2001 and 2002, been on an extensive East Coast tour, and returned to the Kennedy Center as part of the 2003–2004 Ballet Season following a 7-week national tour. Suzanne Farrell was selected as one of the five recipients of the 2005 Kennedy Center Honors, one of the highest honors for lifetime artistic achievement.

In 2007 the Suzanne Farrell Ballet formalized the creation of the Balanchine Preservation Initiative. This initiative introduces lost or rarely seen Balanchine works to audiences. As a result ballets like Ragtime(Balanchine/Stravinsky), Pithoprakta (Balanchine/Xenakis) and Divertimento Brillante (Balanchine/Glinka). ^[8]

Media[link]

Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell is an initiative of the Kennedy Center Education Department and is made possible in part by the U.S. Department of Education and the Kennedy Center Corporate Fund. Additional support is provided by the Margaret Abell Powell Fund. Suzanne Farrell was prominently featured in Balanchine (2004) a documentary about the life of George Balanchine.

Awards[link]

President George W. Bush and Laura Bush pose with the Kennedy Center honorees, from left to right, actress Julie Harris, actor Robert Redford, singer Tina Turner, ballet dancer Suzanne Farrell and singer Tony Bennett on December 4, 2005, during the reception in the Blue Room at the White House.

Farrell has received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University, among others. She has also been a tenured professor of dance at Florida State University since 2000, and in 2003 she received the National Medal of Arts.

She was celebrated in 2005 at the Kennedy Center Honors as one of the most influential ballerinas of the 20th century. She also was the 2005 recipient of the Capezio Dance Award. Farrell was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 2009.

Further reading and viewing[link]

• Suzanne Farrell, Toni Bentley, Holding on to the Air (Summit Books, New York, 1990)
• Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse, a 1996 documentary film
• Suzanne Farrell – Elusive Muse, (Directed by Anne Belle and Deborah Dickson 1990)

Quotes[link]

• "Life is hard; it’s meant to be a test, but while you’re studying for that test, isn’t it nice to be dancing."^[3]
• "I'm thought of as a cool unemotional dancer but inside I'm most certainly not. As soon as I hear music something in me starts to vibrate."
• "When you get on a stage you can do anything."
• "When I first met Peter [Martins], I said to Mr. B, 'Well, at least he's tall.' I did not even think about how handsome he was. And he was very handsome."
• "In my youth I have always been drawn to dance. It made me feel sexy and have confidence."

References[link]

Movie reviews[link]

• New York Times, October 7, 1996

External links[link]

• The Suzanne Farrell Ballet
• Archival footage of Suzanne Farrell speaking about Balanchine and technique in 2006 at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
• Archival footage of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet performing Clarinade in 2006 at Jacob's Pillow.
• Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell
• Photos of Suzanne Farrell courtesy of Getty Images
• The Ballerina Gallery – Suzanne Farrell
• Horstman, Barry M (April 19, 1999). "Suzanne Farrell: She shaped new generation of dancers". The Cincinnati Post (E. W. Scripps Company). Archived from the original on May 17, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070517104605/http://www.cincypost.com/living/1999/farrel041999.html. 
• Capezio Dance Award – Suzanne Farrell 2005
• 2003 BOMB Magazine interview of Suzanne Farrell by Emily Fragos

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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.
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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

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Amaducci, L.; E. Grassi, and F. Boller (January 2002). "Maurice Ravel and right-hemisphere musical creativity: influence of disease on his last musical works?". European Journal of Neurology 9 (1): 75–82. DOI:10.1046/j.1468-1331.2002.00351.x. ISSN 13515101. PMID 11784380. 
• Blakeslee, Sandra (April 8, 2008). "A Disease That Allowed Torrents of Creativity". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/health/08brai.html. Retrieved August 10, 2008. 
• Henley, Jon (April 25, 2001). "Poor Ravel". The Guardian (UK). http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,477906,00.html. Retrieved August 12, 2008. 
• James, Burnett (1987). Ravel. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-7119-0987-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=JaOpHQyYEHkC. 
• Jankélévitch, Vladimir (1995) (in French). Ravel. Solfèges (Nouv. éd., rev. et augm ed.). Paris: Seuil. ISBN 2-02-023490-4. OCLC 33209653. 
• Kavanaugh, Patrick (1996). "Orchestra Music". Music of the Great Composers: A Listener's Guide to the Best of Classical Music. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. ISBN 0-310-20807-6. OCLC 34149901. http://books.google.com/?id=qSFD5A6r3QEC&pg=PA56&vq=ravel. 
• Kelly, Barbara L.. "Ravel, Maurice". Grove Music Online. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52145. Retrieved December 9, 2009. 
• Lamaze, David (2009). "The Watchmaker's Heart". thebookedition.com. http://le-cygne-de-ravel.com/indexEng.html. Retrieved September 23, 2010. 
• Orenstein, Arbie (1991). Ravel: man and musician. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-26633-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=1b_JlAZLiZAC. 
• Ravel, Maurice (1989) (in French). Lettres, écrits, entretiens. Orenstein, Arbie, ed.. Paris: Flammarion. ISBN 2-08-066103-5. OCLC 20025651. 
• Schonberg, Harold C. (1981). The Lives of the Great Composers (revised ed.). New York, London: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-01302-2. OCLC 6278261. 
• Siegel, Michele (March 1, 2009). "Florence Meyer Blumenthal". Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/blumenthal-florence-meyer. Retrieved September 23, 2010. 
• Smith, Jane Stuart; Betty Carlson (1995). The Gift of Music: Great Composers and Their Influence (3 ed.). Wheaton IL: Crossway Books. p. 272. ISBN 0-89107-869-X. OCLC 32820672. 
• Weinstein, Larry (Director) (1988). Ravel (Videotape). Toronto: Rhombus Media. OCLC 156633524. 
• Weinstein, Larry (Director) (2001). Ravel's Brain (Videotape). Oley, PA: Bullfrog Films. Produced by Rhombus Media. ISBN 1-56029-904-5. OCLC 48513895. 

Further reading[link]

• "Maurice Ravel". Biography Resource Center (Subscription required) (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale) 25 (Contemporary Musicians). 1999. 
• Ivry, Benjamin (2000). Maurice Ravel: a Life. New York: Welcome Rain. ISBN 1-56649-152-5. OCLC 44172900. 
• Larner, Gerald (1996). Maurice Ravel. London: Phaidon. ISBN 0-7148-3270-7. OCLC 35985736. 
• Marnat, Marcel (1986, rev 1995). Maurice Ravel. Paris: Fayard. ISBN 2-213-01685-2. OCLC 419729751. 
• Mawer, Deborah, ed. (2000). The Cambridge Companion to Ravel. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64856-4. OCLC 59558270. 
• Nichols, Roger (2011). Ravel. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10882-6. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Maurice Ravel

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Maurice Ravel

Wikisource has the text of a 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Maurice Ravel.

Free Scores[link]

• Free scores by Maurice Ravel at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Maurice Ravel in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Maurice Ravel in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• www.kreusch-sheet-music.net – Free Scores by Ravel

Miscellaneous[link]

• Maurice Ravel Frontispice at www.maurice-ravel.net
• Epitonic.com: Maurice Ravel featuring a track from Miroirs and Gaspard De La Nuit
• Works by or about Maurice Ravel in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Maurice Ravel at Find a Grave
• The mystery of the missing Bolero millions – an artist's rights saga! – and a tale of greed?
• Many quotations about Ravel's personality
• Maurice Ravel "Vocalise Etude en form de Habanera" sung by Varda Kotler.

Recordings[link]

• Piano Rolls (The Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation)
• Maurice Ravel on Wikilivres