Maurice Ravel 150: The Man and His Music

Celebrating the 150^th birthday anniversary of Maurice Ravel this year is a welcome opportunity to explore a composer who, like many innovative composers, doesn’t fit neatly into one category. Ravel himself  said that he “endeavored above all to do entirely varied things” expressed through modern elements, Baroque and neoclassical idioms and even jazz with his own unique brand of color, clarity of texture and intricacies in nearly all genres of music – solo piano, orchestral, ballet, chamber music, song and opera in works diminutive and grand.  Here’s a look at this quiet man and his enormous impact on music.  And see my list of some of Ravel’s most highly-regarded works at the end of this article. 

His early years proved to be an important foundation for his lifelong output.  Ravel was born on March 7, 1875 in a small village in the Basque Pyrenees mountains of France, near the southwestern border of France and Spain.  From his adored mother, a French Basque, and from childhood summers spent in the Basque mountains, he developed a lifelong attraction to Basque folklore and Spanish music, so evident in his L’Heure Espagnol, Bolero, Alborada del gracioso, Rhapsody Espagnol and Pavane pour une infante défunte.  From his father, a Swiss civil engineer, Ravel acquired an attention to intricacy and detail that carried over to his personal characteristics and became a hallmark of his music.  In fact, Igor Stravinsky, a friend and admirer of Ravel, called him “a perfect Swiss watchmaker.”  Another important influence was the Paris Conservatory, where he studied piano and composition with the venerable Gabriel Fauré.  But his time there was not without controversy – his early compositions were deemed too modern, he joined an avant-garde music group, Les Apaches (The Hooligans) to explore new sounds, and he lost out on the prestigious Prix de Rome multiple times by a conservative judging panel, which caused an uproar and led to the resignation of the Conservatory’s director.   

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Music was undergoing significant change in this early period of the 20^th century; new ideas of harmony and structure were emerging and new sounds were taking hold.  Ravel grasped them and molded them within his own very individualistic style. It was precisely his forward-looking ideas, which he sometimes used within traditional structures, that makes Ravel’s music unique.  He stretched traditional idioms with unresolved harmony or extraneous notes added to chords, and his melodies were often based on old modal systems, thereby adding an exotic flavor, and his orchestration is full of colors.  Like his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, Ravel disliked being referred to as “Impressionistic,” yet he so deftly expressed mood and atmosphere with color, luminescence and refinement, like a paint brush gently caressing a musical picture.  It’s no surprise that his music idol was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Classical master of grace and elegance.  

As a pianist, Ravel explored the full extent of piano sonorities, as we hear in his piano masterpieces: the neo-Baroque Tombeau de Couperin, modeled on a 17^th dance suite with touches of modern harmonies; sparkling, dancing waters of Jeux d’eau; nightmarish, supernatural images in the virtuosic Gaspard de la Nuit; and a collection of images and moods in his Mirors suite.   

Ravel’s talent extended beyond piano to orchestral and chamber music, opera and song.  Inspired by Nicholai Rimsky-Korsakov, Ravel became a master orchestrator, sensitive to timbre and texture, density, luminescence and transparency.  Ravel orchestrated several of his piano works and his compositions written specifically for orchestra remain well-regarded:  the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, composed for the acclaimed Ballets Russes; the famous Bolero, a study of repetition with varying textures and intensity in the form of a Spanish dance; and his Rhapsody Espagnol, a soundfest of Spanish rhythms and instrumentation that drew on his love of Spain.  His Piano Concerto in G explored new avenues with tinges of jazz, influenced by his friend, George Gershwin.  His brilliant orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is the mostly widely-performed orchestral version of that great programmatic work. 

Ravel’s affection for fantasy and the worlds of children and animals led to his opera, L’Enfant et les sortilèges (to be performed by the Metropolitan Opera on March 22, 2025, heard on WETA Classical’s Opera Matinee).  His music for voice includes the song cycle, Shéhérazade, based on the Arabian Nights and inspired by Rimsky-Korsakov, and the song cycle, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, taken from Cervantes’s classic novel.  His love of purity and intricacy shines in his charming body of chamber music, particularly his admired String Quartet, which takes us on a sound voyage with minimalism. 

In every genre, Ravel meticulously crafted each score – like a Swiss watchmaker, as Stravinsky aptly said – to remove extraneous material and overly-dense textures to achieve transparency and refinement.  It’s no surprise that Ravel’s music idol was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Classical master of grace and elegance. 

During his lifetime, Ravel enjoyed popular success and admiration by his peers.  After Debussy’s death in 1918, Ravel became the most popular living French composer.  He toured Canada and the United States in 1928 and received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Oxford University in England.   Although he had a small, loyal circle of friends, Ravel was a quiet and private man, living alone in his rural home outside of Paris.  His output of compositions slowed upon the death of his beloved mother in 1917, and his health rapidly deteriorated after a vehicle accident, the complications of which led to his death in 1937. 

We can only marvel at the creative and important output of Maurice Ravel, and offer him a tip of our chapeau as we pay homage to this French master this year, his 150^th birth anniversary.  Listen for his music on WETA Classical and a podcast dedicated to his masterwork, Gaspard de la Nuit.   

Significant Works of Maurice Ravel 

Bolero.  Composed in 1928 for ballet and based on Spanish dance, it has become one of Ravel’s most popular and enduring works, consisting of a simple theme repeated in various intensities and dynamics. 

Daphnis et Chloe.  A festival of colors, passion and luminescence in this ballet, referred to as a “choreographic symphony,” that depicts a love affair between a goatherder and a shepherdess in ancient Greece. 

Gaspard de la Nuit.  An impressionistic depiction of three dark, supernatural scenes taken from Aloysius Bertrand’s collection of prose poems of the same name.  A virtuosic work for solo piano. 

Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte. Composed while a student at the Paris Conservatory, Ravel described this stately dance as  “an evocation of a pavane that a little princess might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court.”  Originally composed for piano, Ravel later orchestrated it. 

Rapsodie Espagnole.  Ravel’s love for Spanish music and Spanish heritage shines in this orchestral rhapsody of modal melodies and Spanish rhythms.  The work was enthusiastically endorsed by the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla. 

Le Tombeau De Couperin.  A piano suite that pays tribute to the French Baroque composer Francois Couperin and traditional 18^th century Baroque suites.  Composed of six segments, each of which is dedicated to a friend of Ravel who lost his life during World War I.  Ravel later orchestrated four of the movements. 

Piano Concerto in G.  The influence of Ravel’s visit to the United States in 1928 and meeting George Gershwin is evident in this concerto that uses jazz idioms in the outer movements.  In Ravel’s words,  “The most captivating part of jazz is its rich and diverting rhythm …Jazz is a very rich and vital source of inspiration for modern composers . . .” Ravel’s musical idol, Mozart, is the inspiration for the Adagio movement. 

Jeux d’Eau.  A brilliant work for solo piano that depicts the sparkle and play of “water games”.  Ravel composed the work while a student at the Paris Conservatory and he dedicated to his teacher, Gabriel Fauré. 

Miroirs.  A suite for solo piano, each of which presents a nostalgic look at nature or objects, and each dedicated to a fellow member of the avant-garde group of composers, Les Apaches.  Ravel later orchestrated the Alborada del gracioso (Morning Song of the Jester) segment of the suite. 

La Valse.  An homage to “Waltz King” Johann Strauss II, Ravel put his love for dance and orchestral colors into this elegant and passionate version of a Viennese waltz.  Ravel described it as a “choreographic poem.”