Maurice Ravel: biography, interesting facts, videos, creativity.

Maurice Ravel

Strangely enough, but, unlike painters or writers, the contribution to the world art of French composers was very modest. Nevertheless, the unique talent of one of them became a symbol of the 20th century and gave impetus to the creative development of many musicians of the new era. The name of this largest reformer of classical music is Maurice Ravel. The representative of impressionism, a gifted composer who greatly enriched European music and influenced the next generation of composers, with his work made an invaluable contribution to the treasury of world music culture.

Read a brief biography of Maurice Ravel and many interesting facts about the composer on our page.

Short biography of Ravel

On March 7, 1875, Maurice Ravel was born in the small town of Cibur on the shores of the Atlantic. His father was a Swiss, his mother belonged to the nation of the Basques, who since ancient times lived in this region - on the south-western border of France with Spain. Maurice surprisingly absorbed the cultural traits of both parents. My father worked as a railway engineer, but at home he was a musician, knowingly possessing not only technical knowledge, but also a flute and a pipe. Thanks to his mother, the boy grew up among the melodies of Basque folklore, the echoes of which were subsequently heard in many of his works.

However, Ravel himself probably considered himself more of a Parisian than a Siburian - after all, his family moved to the capital when he was only a few months old. From the age of seven, the boy began studying music, and at 14 he entered the Paris Conservatoire. According to the biography of Ravel, after 6 years he becomes her graduate in piano. The desire to get a diploma diploma resulted in many years of dramatic events. In 1895 he was expelled from the conservatory, two years later he was reinstated. The gifted student takes under his care the famous composer Gabriel Faure, under the influence of whom Ravel's talent begins to unfold. Another famous composer, Andre Zhedalj, gives Maris private lessons in counterpoint. However, the unique style of music and the independence of the judgments of Maurice do not find understanding in the conservatory, including its director, Theodore Dubois. And in 1900, Ravel was re-deducted from the alma mater, retaining the right to attend Fore's classes as a volunteer.

Four times from 1901 to 1905, Ravel attempted to become a scholar of the prestigious Rome Prize, whose recipients for two years at the expense of the state were sent on probation to the Italian capital. But, if three times the works of Ravel remained in the shadow of others, now almost unknown, the last time his candidacy was not even considered, referring to the formal pretext. Such was the reaction of the official music circles of France to the "anti-musical" work of the composer, who was rapidly gaining popularity. In the press, a campaign against the conservative arbitrariness against Ravel was launched, and the decision made by the leadership of the Rome Prize cost Dubois the executive chair. It will take another 15 years, Ravel will be offered membership in the Order of the Legion of Honor, and in the French Institute - he will refuse both symbols of national recognition.

By the beginning of the First World War, Ravel was one of the most famous French composers, his works are successful, his name, along with the name of C. Debussy, becomes a symbol of the progressive creativity of the new century. The news of the beginning of the war shocked him, but he considered it his duty to enroll in the army, despite the fact that he received a medical connection due to his slender build. For more than three years, one of the most notable talents of the 20th century served as a truck driver with various shelves. The state of health in 1918 forced him to leave the army - for several years he had survived an operation on the intestines, frostbite of the legs, and death of his beloved mother.

Post-war cooperation with SP Dyagilev and concerts in the United States significantly improved the financial position of the composer, allowing him to escape from the annoying attention in the newly acquired house in the town of Monfor-l'Amori, near Paris. In 1933, Ravel, having got into a car accident, was injured in the head. Severe neurological disease prevented him from continuing to work. For the last four years of his life, the composer has not written a single line. December 28, 1937, after a brain surgery, he passed away.

Interesting facts about Maurice Ravel

• Biography Ravel says that in fact the composer did not really like to play the piano. His friend, one of the most outstanding pianists of his time, Ricardo Vinyes, noticed that Maurice loved music much more than the piano.
• Ravel's favorite composer was Mozart.
• During the World Exhibition, held in the French capital in 1895, the composer attended a concert of Russian music and praised the work of his conductor, N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov.
• Ravel visited all 29 performances of "Pellias and Melisande" C. Debussy, which took place in the premiere season.
• In the first 24 years of its existence, the Spanish Hour was performed in Paris only 6 times.

• Maurice Ravel is one of the few celebrities whose personal life has remained an absolute secret. He had no children, never married, there are no traces in the history about the names of his partners or mistresses.
• For the production of the opera Mussorgsky "Khovanshchina" in 1913 in Paris S.P. Dygilev ordered M. Ravel and I.F. Stravinsky her new orchestration.
• Execution of "Bolero" lasts 17 minutes.
• Since 2010, the Spanish Hour has been performed in the Mariinsky Theater in Russian.

Ravel's creativity

It is not surprising that pianist Ravel wrote most of his compositions for this instrument. In his orchestral works he hardly has a dozen, two operas, three ballets, and a few works with solo strings. The first of the surviving writings of Maurice Ravel dated 1888, the last - 1933, the year of the beginning of the disease. Wherein the number of his opuses is 85that is, on average, no more than two works a year came out of the composer’s pen. Probably, his inspiration was as selective as he himself - picky about himself. Each piece was carefully thought out and brought to perfection in detail - such perfectionism explains such a moderate list of essays.

In 1895, Ravel published his work for the first time, "Old Minuet"At the same time, he begins to write on Spanish topics - the first was"Habanera"for two pianos, written for performance together with R. Vinyes. Thanks to his studies with Foret, the style of the young composer becomes more profound and mature. In 1898 he wrote his first orchestral work - overture"Scheherazade"with which one year later he will debut as a conductor at a concert at the National Music Society of France.

Ravel was not a pure avant-gardist or musical "bully", most of his works were created according to classical canons. However, after the second expulsion from the conservatory, he became a co-founder of Apache or Hooligans, as a group of like-minded people called themselves, including musicians, poets and artists. In addition to Ravel, it also included I. Stravinsky, and M. de Falla, and R. Vinyes. Five members of the "Apache" Ravel dedicated five-part Sonata "Reflections", at the premiere in 1906, it was performed by R. Vinyes, to whom the second part of it, “Sad Birds”, is dedicated.

One of the original works of the composer was the cycle of songs for voice and piano "Natural stories", written in 1906 on satirical poems about animals by J. Renard. The innocent work was immediately overwhelmed with scandal - newspaper critics attacked him with accusations of plagiarism in one of K. Debussy's works. The composer remained imperturbable, finishing work on the Spanish Rhapsody orchestra from "Habanera", which at the premiere was a great success and quickly entered the repertoire of the best orchestras in the world.

From the biography of Ravel we learn that in 1909 his first foreign tours as a pianist took place - in London, these concerts brought the composer excellent reviews and strengthened his position on the international musical Olympus. Upon his return to Paris, Ravel, together with several of his fellow students, established the Independent Musical Society, whose goal was the development of new French music. The president of this organization becomes Fore. On April 20, 1910, the first concert was held under the auspices of the society, at which Ravel performed the plays of the cycle "Mother Goose".

May 19, 1911 in Paris Opera-Comique Theater premiered opera RavelSpanish hour“based on the play by M. Fran-Noen. The composer waited for this event for three years, because the opera ordered by the US theater in 1907 did not please the theater administration. The Spanish Hour, although it follows the best traditions of the Italian opera-buffa, was created impressed by another opera - “The Marriage” by MP Mussorgsky. Moreover, the composer also used the idea of ​​Mussorgsky about the absence of an independent libretto - the text of the opera is the author’s text of the play. The audience met the premiere coolly, but over time Noah.

The story of the appearance of the first opera is not the only evidence that Ravel was well acquainted with the music of Russian composers. It was he who proposed to make the initial theme from the Second Symphony of A.P. Borodin In 1908 he wrote the Gaspard from the Darkness piano cycle. Before his appearance, the most technically challenging play for the pianist was Islamey, MA Balakirev. But Ravel set himself the goal of creating an even more complex musical score and he succeeded quite well.

If the composer did not particularly succeed in the opera, the second genre of musical theater, ballet, brought him many pleasant moments of success. All three of his ballet Ravel was released in 1912. "Mother Goose"was shown in Paris and London, having received excellent criticism. Lovely"Adelaide, or the Language of Flowers"in its core had the piano cycle"Noble and sentimental waltzes", created in 1908. Ballerina N. Trukhanova was fascinated by this music and invited Ravel to rework it into ballet. The Parisian premiere took place on April 22, the author was behind the conductor's console. Now it's hard to believe, but" Adelaide ... "has become much more successful staging, rather than the third work of the composer on the ballet stage. On June 8, another Russian creative team, this time - S.P. Dyagileva, released "Daphnis and Chloe". The staging was carried out by M. Fokin, the main parts were performed by T. Karsavina and V. Nijinsky.

During the First World War the piano suite was written "Tomb of Couperin", and after the already unhurried pace of writing music, it slowed down to a single work a year. In 1920, Ravel played the newly-written Waltz among friends. Dyagilev, who was present at the party, said that the composer wrote a masterpiece, but not ballet. Ravel didn’t argue with that, but he didn’t continue his collaboration with the entrepreneur, and Waltz became the choreographic poem for the orchestra and the second most popular composition by the composer.

In the same 1920 the composer proceeds to create his second opera - the plot of children's fairy tales, proposed by the writer Colette. The work was not immediately opera - at first it was planned to write a ballet. "Child and magic"in 1925 he successfully staged the Monte-Carlo Opera House. In 1926, they were first performed in Paris"Madagascar songs"to the words of E. Parni. They are so organically combined words and music, recitation and melodiousness, voice and orchestra, that they rightfully belong to the composer’s best chamber works.

At the sunset of his creative life Ravel writes "Bolero"commissioned by dancer Ida Rubinstein for her own benefit performance. Bronislava Nizhinskaya, sister of the famous dancer, became ballet master. On November 22, 1928, the world first heard one of the most iconic melodies of the 20th century, included in the repertoire of all major symphonic orchestras familiar to people even far from classical music. This composition is unique in its construction, consisting of a chain of repetitive melodies performed by various solo instruments, including such rarities as clarinet-piccolo, oboe d'amur and sac ofon.

After the fantastic "Bolero" Maurice Ravel wrote two concertos for piano and orchestra. The first concert was warmly received by the public throughout Europe, a tour of which Ravel undertook in 1932. The second, entitled "Concert for the Left Hand," was written in 1930 for the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right hand in the war.

Music Ravel in the cinema

"Bolero" - this is the main lure of cinema in the heritage of Maurice Ravel. More than a hundred and fifty films have included this magnetic melody in their soundtracks:

• Secret Agent, 2016
• "Eddie" Eagle ", 2016
• "Magic of the Moonlight", 2014
• Magnolia, 1999
• "Stalker", 1979

However, it would be unfair not to mention films that have drawn attention to other works of the composer.

The composer’s works constituted the musical basis of Claude Saute's Ice Heart. The main character, the violinist Camilla, is crazy about the music of Ravel, to the accompaniment of which a subtle psychological drama of the classic love triangle unfolds.

The title of honorary doctor of the University of Oxford, an honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society of Great Britain, the highest state award of Belgium - the Order of Leopold I - the recognition of the merits of Maurice Ravel to world culture. And decades of rejection of his work in their own homeland. Such was the two-faced glory of this amazing maestro, a hospitable host and a solitary recluse with never revealed heart secrets.