http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel (born March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, France; died
December 28, 1937 in Paris) was a French composer and pianist,
known especially for the subtlety, richness and poignancy of his
music. His piano, chamber-music and orchestral works have become
staples of repertoire.
Ravel's piano compositions, such as Miroirs and Gaspard de la Nuit,
are virtuosic, and his orchestrations, as in Daphnis et Chloé and
his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition,
are notable for their effective use of tonal color and variety of
sound and instrumentation.
To the general public, Ravel is probably best known for his
orchestral work, Boléro, which he considered trivial and once
described as "a piece for orchestra without music."
According to Sacem, Ravel's estate earns more royalties than that
of any other French musician.
Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Musical style
3 Musical Influence
4 Notable compositions
5 Media
6 See also
7 External links
8 References
[edit] Biography
Ravel was born in Ciboure, France near Biarritz, part of the French
Basque region, bordering on Spain. His mother, Marie Delouart, was
Basque while his father, Joseph Ravel, was a Swiss inventor and
industrialist. A few of Joseph's inventions are quite important;
among them are an early internal combustion engine and a notorious
circus machine, "The Whirlwind of Death" (an automotive
loop-the-loop that was quite a hit in the early 1900s). After the
family moved to Paris, Ravel's younger brother Edouard was born. At
seven years old, young Maurice began piano lessons and composed
pieces beginning about five or six years later. His parents
encouraged his musical pursuits and sent him to the Conservatoire
de Paris, first as a preparatory student and eventually as a piano
major. During his schooling in Paris, Ravel joined with a number of
innovative young artists who referred to themselves as the
"Apaches" ("hooligans") because of their wild abandon. The group
was well known for its drunken revelry.
He studied music at the Conservatoire under Gabriel Fauré for a
remarkable fourteen years. During his years at the conservatory,
Ravel tried numerous times to win the prestigious Prix de Rome, but
to no avail. After a scandal involving his loss of the prize in
1905 (to Victor Gallois), even though he was considered the
favourite to win that year, Ravel left the conservatory. The
incidentnamed the Ravel Affair by the Parisian pressalso led to
the resignation of the Conservatoire's director, Théodore
Dubois.