Latest Release
- Walt Disney World Official Album · 2013
- Chilled Azz, Vol. 18 · 1996
- Maurice Ravel Performs Original Piano Works · 2007
- Ravel: The Composer As Pianist and Conductor (1913-1930) · 2010
- Legendary Piano Immortals (Remastered Historical Recording) · 2011
- Legendary Piano Immortals (Remastered Historical Recording) · 2011
- Boléro (Ravel) [feat. Maurice Ravel] - Single · 2022
- Lullaby Classical Hits Vol.4 · 2022
- Maurice Ravel Performs Original Piano Works · 2007
- Maurice Ravel Performs Original Piano Works · 2007
Essential Albums
- Pierre Boulez’s sensual side—really, the arch-modernist has one—is most apparent when he performs the Impressionist music of his French forerunner Ravel. The conductor’s crisp, deliberate, yet fully decadent performances of Boléro have been of great assistance to listeners’ understanding of that piece; on this recording, the woodwind and brass players of the Berliner Philharmoniker savor every solo feature, along with Boulez and his firm hand. Equally stunning is their collective take on Rapsodie espagnole (check out the glistening passages of gorgeousness that surround moments of tumult during “Feria”).
- 2024
- 2024
Artist Playlists
- The French composer was a master of musical color and atmosphere.
Appears On
About Maurice Ravel
Stravinsky compared Ravel’s mind to that of a Swiss watchmaker. But behind its exquisite, super-refined surface, Ravel’s music can also convey strange dark passions and profound melancholy. He was born in Ciboure, France, near the Spanish border, in 1875, of half-Basque parentage—a fact of which he remained intensely proud. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but succeeded only in annoying his teachers, leading to his expulsion in 1895. He was readmitted two years later, however, and his new teacher, Fauré, proved both understanding and inspiring. Along with his contemporary Debussy he formed an artistic group called Les Apaches (“The Hooligans”) who caused controversy, but his failure, after five attempts, to win the coveted Prix de Rome became a national scandal. Ravel remained emotionally guarded, and the nature of his sexuality remains a mystery. Though he composed slowly, Ravel produced a steady stream of masterpieces in several genres, especially opera (including the weirdly magical L’enfant et les sortilèges [1925]), chamber and orchestral music (notably two piano concertos, La Valse [1920] and the famous Boléro[1928]), songs, and solo piano pieces. His fondness for exotic, fragile, dreamlike atmospheres earned him the label “Impressionist,” though he strongly disliked it. In the 1930s, Ravel began to suffer from dementia, and his final years were a story of pitiful, lonely mental decline. He died in 1937.
- HOMETOWN
- Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées, France
- BORN
- March 7, 1875
- GENRE
- Classical