Maurice Ravel

Introduction

Maurice Ravel once remarked, “A” Ravel's own compositions demonstrate that he was aware of and interested in an enormous variety of music, everything from flamenco to French Baroque, masterworks to jazz. In his youth, Ravel's eclecticism earned him nothing but disdain from the French musical establishment. After World War I, however, he became the leading representative of French music both at home and abroad (Siegel, pp 89 - 90).

Maurice Ravel defied the established rules of harmony with his unresolved sevenths and ninths and other devices, his syncopation and strange sonorities, and he made the piano sound as it had never sounded before. His orchestrations are brilliant, especially in their masterly use of wind instruments and unusual percussion effects, often characteristically French, sometimes with a Spanish flavour. It is interesting that his only work written purely for orchestra is Rapsodie espagnole (1907); everything else orchestral is either opera, ballet, or orchestrated piano pieces.

Thesis Statement

Maurice Ravel was a great composer who shows no influences should change his profession and because of his scintillating and dynamic music that makes him different from other composers.

His Work as a composer

When World War I broke out he joined the army and for a short time saw active service until he was discharged for health reasons; his Tombeau de Couperin (1917, 'The Tomb of Couperin'), a piano suite in 18th-century style which he later orchestrated, was dedicated to friends killed in action. The choreographic poem La Valse, epitomizing the spirit of Vienna, was staged in 1920, and the opera L'Enfant et les sortilèges ('The Child and His Spells'), written to a libretto by Colette, in 1925. To this late period also belong the two piano concertos (1929-31), one for the left hand and written for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961), who had lost his right arm in the war, and Boléro (1928), originally intended as a miniature ballet. (Siegel, pp 89 - 90).

Ravel's music was becoming quite popular. The String Quartet (1902-3) was often performed; Daphnis et Chloé became part of the repertory of the Ballets russes. He traveled to Great Britain in 1909 and 1911, and to Vienna in 1920; his music continued to take him all over Europe throughout the 1920s; in 1928 he toured America. Perhaps his most popular piece, Boléro, was written for the dancer Ida Rubenstein and premiered at the Paris Opéra on 22 November 1928. He never taught for any school, and taught very few pupils privately (among the few were Vaughan Williams and Roland-Manuel). Ravel's health began to fail seriously in 1932. As time went on he had increasing difficulties with muscular coordination. He died after unsuccessful brain surgery in December 1937.

Ravel was a perfectionist in his compositional process, paying scrupulous attention to detail. Stravinsky described him as a “Swiss watchmaker.” In a sense he was detached from his music; he employed exotic scales and modes, and composed in imitative veins, evoking the past with Baroque gestures or adopting a Spanish style. The repetition of a single accompaniment figure ...