Impressionism · Main figures
1875 – 1937
Ciboure, France → Paris
Life
Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, in the French Basque Country, as a Basque mother and a Swiss engineer father, and was raised in Paris. He studied at the Conservatory with Gabriel Fauré, and his repeated failure at the Prix de Rome ended in 1905 in a scandal that forced the director of the centre to resign. By that time I had already written the Pavane pour une infante défunte and Jeux d'eauOne of the pioneering works of the Impressionist piano.
Ravel shared with Debussy the taste for orchestral color and extended harmonies, but his music is more clear and in more classic forms; he was defined as a classic of new forms. Great orchestrator, with Daphne et Chloé took the orchestral impressionism to its summit, and its link with Spain goes through works such as the Rapsodie spagnole or Boléro. He died in Paris on December 28, 1937, after several years of neurological disease.
Featured works
- Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899)
- Jeux d'eau for piano (1901)
- String Quartet in fa major (1903)
- Miroirs for piano (1905)
- Rapsodie spagnole (1907)
- Gaspard de la nuit (1908)
- Ma mère l'Oo (1908–1911)
- Daphne et Chloé, ballet (1912)
- Le tombeau de Couperin (1917)
- The fence (1920)
- Boléro (1928)
- Concert for piano in major sun (1931)
