Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel was a French composer, pianist, and conductor who lived from 1875 to 1937. He was often associated with Impressionism, although he rejected the term, and was internationally regarded as France’s greatest living composer in the 1920s and 1930s.

Some of Maurice Ravel’s most famous works include the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, the orchestral piece Boléro, and the piano suite Gaspard de la nuit, which is known for its exceptional difficulty.

After leaving the Paris Conservatoire, where he was not well regarded by the conservative establishment, Maurice Ravel developed his own distinctive style that incorporated elements of modernism, baroque, and neoclassicism, and later, even jazz.

Maurice Ravel was renowned for his abilities in orchestration, and he made several orchestral arrangements of other composers’ piano music, including his well-known version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

Ravel was among the first composers to recognize the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public. From the 1920s, he took part in recordings of several of his own works, and others were made under his supervision.

Ravel was a slow and painstaking worker, composing fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Many of his works exist in two versions: first, a piano score and later an orchestration.

Ravel liked to experiment with musical form, as seen in his best-known work, Boléro, in which repetition takes the place of development. His complex orchestral works also required skilful balance in performance.