Maurice Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer and conductor and a leading representative of musical Impressionism. He was born on March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, to Joseph Ravel, a Swiss automotive engineer, and Marie Delouart, who came from a Basque family. He began studying piano in 1882 with Henri Ghys and harmony in 1887 with Charles René.
Ravel entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1889, where he studied piano with Charles de Bériot. In his final year, he joined Gabriel Fauré’s class. The music of Erik Satie and his meeting with pianist Ricardo Viñes helped spark his interest in improvisation and composition; Ravel later called Satie his forerunner.
After leaving the Conservatoire, Ravel composed a series of works that included Water Games, the String Quartet, the opera The Spanish Hour, and the orchestral Spanish Rhapsody. He tried for the Prix de Rome several times between 1901 and 1905 but did not win. His exclusion from the 1905 competition prompted a public controversy and helped bring wider attention to his music. He emerged as a leading Impressionist composer alongside Claude Debussy.
Ravel composed the ballet Daphnis and Chloe for Sergei Diaghilev’s company. Other major works include The Waltz, the opera-ballet The Child and the Enchantments, the piano suite The Tomb of Couperin, and Bolero. At Serge Koussevitzky’s request, he orchestrated Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition; his version became widely popular. Ravel also toured as a pianist and conductor, performing his own works in Europe and, in 1928, across the United States and Canada. His exposure to jazz and blues during that tour influenced works including the first movement of his G major Piano Concerto and the second movement of his Violin Sonata No. 2.
In 1929, Ravel received an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Oxford. He began work on a ballet about Joan of Arc after touring Europe with pianist Marguerite Long in 1932, but a car accident interrupted his composing. From 1933, he suffered from a serious neurological illness. His final work was Three Songs of Don Quixote to Dulcinea, written for singer Feodor Chaliapin. Ravel died in Paris on December 28, 1937, after brain surgery intended to treat aphasia. He was buried in Levallois-Perret Cemetery.