Maurice Ravel

Joseph Maurice Ravel (French pronunciation: /ʒɔzɛf mɔʁis ʁavɛl/; Ciboure, Labort, March 7, 1875 - Paris, December 28, 1937) was a French composer of the 20th century. His work, often linked to Impressionism, also displays a bold neoclassical style and, at times, expressionist traits, and is the fruit of a complex heritage and musical discoveries that revolutionized music for piano and orchestra. Renowned as a master of orchestration and for being a meticulous craftsman, cultivating formal perfection while remaining deeply human and expressive at the same time, Ravel excelled in revealing "the most subtle games of intelligence and the most hidden outpourings of the heart" (LeRobert).

Biography

1875-1900: Learning

Childhood

Ravel home in Ciburu.

Ravel was born on March 7, 1875, at 12 Quai de la Nivelle in Ciboure, department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, part of the French Basque Country. His father, Joseph Ravel (1832-1908), was a renowned civil engineer, of Swiss and Savoyard (Ravex ) descent. His mother, Marie Delouart-Ravel (1840-1917), was of Basque origin, descendant of an old Spanish family (Deluarte or Eluarte). He had a brother, Édouard Ravel (1878-1960) with whom he maintained a strong emotional relationship throughout his life.

A few months later, in June 1875, the Ravel family moved to Paris. The influence on Maurice Ravel's musical imaginary of his Basque origins is discussed, since the musician did not return to the Basque Country before he was 25 years old. However, in the biography written by Arbie Orenstein it is mentioned that Ravel felt very close to his mother and that she passed on her Basque cultural heritage (which, according to Orenstein, would have had a great influence on the life and musical production of Ravel); According to said biography, one of the first memories of the Labourt composer were the Basque folk songs that his mother sang to him.He would later regularly return to Saint Jean de Luz to spend vacations or to work.

His parents frequented the artistic milieu, encouraging the first steps of their son who very soon revealed an exceptional musical talent. He began the study of the piano at the age of six under the guidance of Henry Ghys. A judicious child, although also capricious and stubborn, he soon demonstrated his natural musical talent, although, to the despair of his parents and teachers, he later admitted to having added to his numerous talents "the most extreme laziness." In fact, at first his Father, to force him to practice the piano, had to promise him small tips. In 1887 he received early classes from Charles René (harmony, counterpoint and composition). The prodigiously fertile artistic and musical climate of Paris at the end of the XIX century could not but stimulate the development of the young man.

Since I was very young I was sensitive to music—to all kinds of music. My father, much more cultivated in this art than most amateurs, was able to develop my tastes and early stimulate my passion." (Ravel, Esquisse autobiographique1928).

Ravel's Future

Enrolling at the Paris Conservatoire in 1889, Ravel was a student of Gabriel Fauré. There he met the Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became his dear friend and interpreter chosen for his best works; both would form part of the group known as Los Apaches, who caused a stir at the premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy in 1902. Impressed by the music of the Far East at the Universal Exposition of 1889, enthusiastic about the of the rebels Emmanuel Chabrier and of Erik Satie, an admirer of Mozart, Saint-Saëns and Debussy, influenced by reading Baudelaire, Poe, Condillac, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam and especially Mallarmé, Ravel early expressed a firm character and a very independent musical spirit. His first compositions proved it: they were already samples of such personality and mastery that his style would only evolve over time: Ballade de la reine morte d'aimer (Ballad of the queen who died of love, 1894), Sérénade grotesque (Grotesque Serenade, 1894,), Menuet antique (1895), Habanera for two pianos (1896).

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was the teacher of Ravel to whom he would dedicate his Jeux d’eau and his Quartet.

In 1897 Ravel entered André Gedalge's counterpoint class. That same year, Gabriel Fauré was also his teacher. He judged the composer with benevolence and greeted the "very good student, hardworking and punctual" and "disarming sincerity". At the end of his studies he composed the Shéhérazade Overture (premiered in May 1899 to whistles from the audience —not to be confused with the work of the same name for female voice and orchestra—), and the famous Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavana for a deceased infanta) with a curious title, which continues to be his most played piano work by amateur music lovers, although its author did not hold it in high esteem.

On the eve of the 20th century, the young Ravel was already recognized as a composer, and his works were the subject of discussion. Still, achieving celebrity was not going to be easy. The audacity of his compositions and his declared admiration for the "affranchis" (liberated) Chabrier and Satié would cost him many enemies among the circle of traditionalists.

1900-1918: The Great Age

The Prix de Rome

Ravel in 1906.

Traditional studies at the Conservatoire led Ravel to apply for the prestigious Prix de Rome. However, his four candidacies (1901, 1902, 1903, 1905) culminated in famous failures. With his cantata Myrrha (based on Byron's Sardanapalus ) he won second place in 1901 (after André Caplet and Gabriel Dupont); then it was prematurely eliminated in 1902 (with Alcyone, based on the story of Alcyone in Ovid's The Metamorphoses) and 1903 (with Alyssa), to be expelled in 1905 for having exceeded the age limit for a few months. This last attempt unleashed a real scandal, when a controversy arose between several journalists, (in which Romain Rolland notably assumed his defense); everything led to the resignation by Théodore Dubois, then director of the Paris Conservatoire, who was replaced by Fauré. The scandal affected the musician, who was invited by his friends Alfred and Misia Edwards to a yacht cruise to Holland together with the painters Pierre Bonnard and Laprade; on said trip he would dissipate and compose several works.

Beyond the media scandal that confronted conservatives and defenders of modernism, and despite the annoyance it caused the musician, "l'affaire Ravel" contributed to making his name known.

Early Masterpieces

It is with Jeux d'eau (Water Games) for piano, from 1901, that the musical personality of Ravel was affirmed, and he was to remain quite independent of the richness of the musical heritage of his time (although Ravel has long carried the label "debussysta"). Interestingly, this linkage took a turn when some saw a Ravelian influence in Debussy's Estampes (1903) pieces: this The controversy would cool the relations of both musicians. The premiere of Histories naturelles (1906) revived the matter: Pierre Lalo, the critic of Temps, stigmatized this art of "coffee- concert with ninths" that reminded Debussy, a new dispute that upset the two musicians.

His reserve, his modesty, his taste for the exotic and the fantastic, his almost obsessive search for formal perfection irradiated his work in the period from 1901 to 1908: Quartet in F Major (1902), Melodies of Shéhérazade (1904), Miroirs and Sonatina for piano (1905), Introduction and allegro for harp y conjunto (1906), the Spanish Rhapsody (1908), Ma mère l'Oye (My mother, the goose, 1908), suite for piano on classic tales by the famous Mother Goose dedicated to the children of her friend Godebski, then her great masterpiece for piano Gaspard de la nuit (Gaspard of the night, 1908), inspired by poems by Aloysius Bertrand.

Successes and disappointments

Synphonic evocation of ancient Greece, Daphnis et Chloé It is the most monumental work of Ravel. Decoration conceived by Léon Bakst for the premiere in 1912.

In April 1909 Ravel was in London, along with Ralph Vaughan Williams, for their first concert tour abroad. With this reason he discovered that he was known and appreciated on the other side of the Channel. In 1910 he was (along with Charles Koechlin and Florent Schmitt, in particular) one of the founders of the Société Musicale Indépendante created to promote modernist music, in opposition to the more conservative Société Nationale de Musique, then chaired by Vincent d';Indy.

Soon two large compositions were going to cause a lot of trouble. In the first place, L'Heure espagnole (The Spanish Hour), an opera written on a libretto by Franc-Nohain, completed in 1907 and premiered in 1911, was poorly received by the public and above all by critics (it was even branded as pornography). Neither the tasty humor of the libretto nor Ravel's daring orchestral effects were understood.

At that time, performances by the Ballets Russes were all the rage and transformed the lives of fans in Paris. The director of the ensemble, Sergei Diaghilev, commissioned works from the most famous composers of the day: Ravel could not be the exception. Following Diaghilev's initiative, he would compose the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, entitled Choreographic Symphony. With its presence of choirs singing vocalizations - not words - Daphnis and Chloé is a vision of ancient Greece that Ravel drew from that given to him by 18th-century French painters. The plot of the work was co-written by Michel Fokine and the composer. It is the composer's longest-lasting work, and for this reason it was the most laborious. The reception of the work was mixed at the premiere in June 1912, which caused the musician's bitterness.

In 1913, Ravel wholeheartedly supported his friend Stravinsky at the tumultuous premiere of The Rite of Spring in Paris. This period preceding the war was later described by Ravel as the happiest of his life. He then lived in an apartment on the prestigious avenue Carnot, near the Place de l'Étoile.

The war

Ravel in 1910.

August 1914. The First World War surprised Ravel in the middle of composing his Trio in A minor which he finally premiered in 1915. From the start of the conflict, the composer intended to enlist, but, exempted from military service due to his small stature, he was rejected for being "less than two kilos". Thus, inaction became torture for Ravel. Through various efforts, he ended up enlisting as a truck driver (March 1916) and went to the front, near Verdun. Victim, in all probability, of peritonitis, he underwent surgery before being demobilized. It was around January 1917 that the composer learned of his mother's death, news that plunged him into torment, incomparable to that caused by the war - from which he never really recovered. However, his creative activity, though somewhat delayed, withstood these accumulated tests. That year he completed six piano pieces grouped under the title Le Tombeau de Couperin (The Tomb of Couperin), a suite in a French Neo-Baroque style that he dedicated to his friends killed in the war.

Thus ended the "great age" of Ravel. That commonly spread image of the dandy Ravel is from this period, a man who is deliberately cold and reserved, concealed behind a carefully calculated affectation and elegance. But nothing will betray his true nature better than his post-1918 masterpieces.

1918-1928: Ravel unmasks

Heir to Debussy

The death of Claude Debussy (1862-1918), so admired by Ravel, left him the difficult mission of leading French music. In his memory he composed Sonata for violin and violet

When the war ended, it had taken with it the illusions of the belle époque and had changed the musician, as it had changed the millions of men mobilized in «the great cataclysm». The dandy's mask fell, and it was another Ravel who came out of this painful experience. His musical production was considerably delayed (one work a year on average, except orchestrations) but the creative intensity was amplified and inspiration was released.

In the years that passed, and after the death of Claude Debussy in 1918, Ravel was henceforth considered the greatest living French composer. Having overcome the failures of his early career, they were now showered with honours, and it was not without ease that he reacted to the announcement of his promotion to the rank of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1920: he had the luxury of refusing the distinction. Satie quipped: "Ravel rejects the Legion of Honor, but all his music accepts it."

His first post-war masterpiece was La Valse, a dramatic symphonic poem commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and premiered in April 1920 in the presence of Stravinsky and Poulenc. He went to the memory of Debussy that Ravel later composed his great Sonata for violin and cello which was premiered by his fetish violinist, Hélène Jourdan-Morhange.

Montfort-l'Amaury

In 1921, Ravel settled in Montfort-l'Amaury in the Yvelines, wishing to acquire "a hovel less than thirty kilometers from Paris": Le Belvédère. In this house, now a museum, he lived until his death. It was there that he composed most of his later works, the three Chansons Madécasses on poems by Evariste Parny (1923) and Tzigane (Gypsy), a rhapsody of concert (1924), leading at the same time a peaceful bachelor life. Le Belvédère was so quickly imbued with the personality of the musician that he made of it, even in life, a true museum (collection of Asian porcelain, mechanical toys, watches...

Ravel Mansion in Montfort-l'Amaury.

It was also the inescapable haunt of the Ravelian cenacle (the writer Léon-Paul Fargue, the composers Maurice Delage, Arthur Honegger, Jacques Ibert, Florent Schmitt, Germaine Tailleferre, the performers Marguerite Long, Robert Casadesus, Jacques Février, Madeleine Grey, Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, and the two faithful disciples of Ravel, Roland-Manuel and Manuel Rosenthal.Although solitary and modest, Ravel had a rich social life and the testimonies agree that he had an unfailing generosity and fidelity.But the visits could not hide entirely the loneliness and sadness of this man, who found an outlet in the intensification of his creative activity (orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky, 1922) and in a series of tours abroad (the Netherlands, Italy, England, Spain).

Lyricism and blues

In 1925, the year of the composer's fiftieth anniversary, he was introduced to the composition of perhaps the most original work by Maurice Ravel: The Child and the Sortileges. The project of this lyrical fantasy dates back to 1919, when Colette proposed (through the mediation of Jacques Rouché, then director of the Paris Opera) the collaboration of Ravel to set to music her own poem, initially titled Divertissement pour ma fille (Divertissement for my daughter). The reception of the public was tempered for the premiere of the opera in Monte Carlo in March 1925, but posterity gave its deserved place to this jewel of the lyrical repertoire. Colette has humorously narrated the purely professional and distant relationship she had with Ravel during the preparation of this project. While in 1927 she finished the Sonata for violin and piano (in which she introduces a blues), Ravel was celebrated far and wide and gained worldwide recognition for his music.

1928-1932: At the Cusp of Glory

Ravel in North America

Russian dancer and patron Ida Rubinstein (1885-1960) was an intimate friend of Ravel. She was the inspiration and disciplining of Bolero. Serov Valentine's Portrait.

1928 was the year of consecration for Ravel, who made a gigantic concert tour of the United States and Canada from January to April, which earned him immense success in each city visited. As a pianist, he played his Sonatina, sometimes conducted the orchestra and gave speeches about music that, unfortunately, were not recorded for the future. It was also an opportunity for him to admire the beauty of this continent, the cradle of jazz that he loved so much. He met, in particular, the young George Gershwin, whose music he greatly appreciated. When the American composer later traveled to France and asked to take lessons with him, Ravel refused, arguing that "you would lose your great melodic spontaneity to compose in a bad Ravelian style".

The Bolero

Back in his country, Ravel began work on what would become his most famous and performed work. The famous dancer and choreographer Ida Rubinstein had commissioned him in 1927 with a "ballet of a Spanish character" for which the musician adopted an ancient Andalusian dance: the bolero. The work, which is committed to lasting around a quarter of an hour with only two themes and a tirelessly repeated ditty, was premiered on November 22, 1928 in front of a somewhat astonished audience. Its diffusion was immediately immense. Ravel had written a veritable masterpiece out of almost insignificant material, but he himself was quickly exasperated by the success of this score which he regarded above all as an experience, and "full of music". When a lady cried: "Au fou, au fou!" ( To the crazy, to the crazy! ) After having heard the work, the composer confided to her brother: «Celle-là, elle a compris!» (Behold, she has understood.)

In October 1928, Ravel received an honorary doctorate of music from Oxford University. In his hometown, he inaugurated, in August 1930, the pier that bears his name.

Latest Masterpieces

Jeanne d’Arc (Juana de Arco) or the great unrealized dream of the musician affected by the disease. "I will never end my Jeanne d'Arc, this opera is there, in my head, I hear it but I will never write it, it is over, I can no longer write my music.” (Ravel, November 1933).

From 1929 to 1931, Ravel conceived his last two masterpieces. Composed simultaneously and premiered a few days apart (January 1932), the two Concertos for piano and orchestra are, however, two very different works. The Concierto for the Left Hand, a grandiose composition bathed in a dark light and tinged with fatality, was answered by the brilliant Concierto in G, in which the slow movement is one of the composer's most intimate musical meditations. Together with the three songs from Don Quixote to Dulcinea composed in 1932 based on a poem by Paul Morand, the Conciertos mark a final point in the musical production of Maurice Ravel.

In 1932, the composer made a triumphant concert tour of Central Europe in the company of the pianist Marguerite Long to present, among other works, his Concerto in G. Back in France, after having recorded this concert under his own direction, Ravel had nothing but projects: in particular, a ballet, Morgiane, inspired by The Thousand and One Nights, and above all a great opera, Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc), based on the novel by Joseph Delteil. However, this eagerness was interrupted.

1933-1937: A tragic end

Since the summer of 1933, Ravel began to present the symptoms of a neurological disease that would condemn him to silence in the last four years of his life. Disorders of writing, motor skills and language were the main manifestations of him, while his intelligence was perfectly maintained and he kept thinking about his music, no longer being able to write or play a single note. The opera Jeanne d'Arc, to which the composer attached so much importance, could never be carried out. It is believed that a traumatic brain injury, the result of a taxi accident in which he was the victim in October 1932, was what precipitated matters; but Ravel seemed aware of this disorder for several years (Pick's disease thesis is still disputed, although today it is believed that it was a frontotemporal dementia). The public remained ignorant of the musician's disease for a long time. Each of his public appearances earned him a triumph, which made his inaction that much more painful.

Ravel's grave.

In 1935, at the suggestion of Ida Rubinstein (recipient of the Bolero), Ravel undertook a last trip to Spain and Morocco that gave him healthy but useless consolation. The musician retired permanently to Montfort-l'Amaury where, until his death, he could count on the fidelity and support of his friends and his faithful housekeeper, Madame Révelot. The evil continued to progress. Desperate surgery on his diseased brain was attempted in Paris in December 1937. On December 28, 1937, Maurice Ravel died at the age of 62. His death caused a real consternation in the world, which the press broadcast in a unanimous tribute. The composer rests in the Levallois-Perret cemetery near his parents and his brother.

With Ravel the last representative of a generation of musicians who had known how to renew musical writing without ever renouncing the principles inherited from classicism disappeared. For this reason he was the last composer whose entire work, always innovative and never retrograde, is considered "completely accessible to lay ears" (Marcel Marnat).

I have never tried to formulate, for others or for myself, the principles of my aesthetic. If I had to, I would ask for permission to attribute the simple statements Mozart made in that regard. He merely said that music can undertake everything, dare everything and paint everything, with such a charm that in the end music always remained

Ravel, Esquisse autobiographique, 1928

Ravel and her art

The influences

Ravel recognized Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–1894) as one of his leading inspirations.

Born in a time quite propitious to the appearance of the arts, Ravel benefited from very diverse influences. But, as Vladimir Jankélévitch points out in his biography, "no influence can boast of having totally conquered him (...). Ravel continues to remain enviously imperceptible behind all those masks that the snobbery of the century gave her."

For this reason, Ravel's music seems, like Debussy's, deeply original, or even immediately unclassifiable according to traditional aesthetics. Neither absolutely modernist nor simply impressionist (as Debussy did, Ravel categorically denied this adjective, which he considered reserved only for painting), it is much more in line with French classicism initiated in the 18th century by Couperin and Rameau and of which It was his last extension. For example, Ravel (unlike his contemporary Stravinsky) never wanted to renounce tonal music and only used dissonance sparingly, which did not prevent him through his research from finding new solutions to the problems posed by harmony and orchestration, and give piano writing new paths.

From Chabrier to jazz

From Fauré and Chabrier (Sérénade grotesque, Pavane pour une infante défunte, Menuet antique) to Afro-American music ( L'Enfant et les sortilèges, Violin Sonata, Concert in G) going through the Russian school (In the manner of… Borodine, orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition), Satie, Debussy (Jeux d'eau, String Quartet), Couperin and Rameau (The Tomb of Couperin), Chopin and Liszt (Gaspard de la nuit, Concerto for the Left Hand), Schubert (Noble Waltzes and sentimental works), Schönberg (Three poems by Mallarmé), and finally Saint-Saëns and Mozart (Concert in G), Ravel was able to make a synthesis of currents extremely varied and impose their style from their first compositions. This style had only to evolve little by little during his career, if not in the way he himself referred to when he said "dépouillement poussé à l'extrême" (purification taken to the extreme) (Sonata for violin and cello, Chansons madécasses).

The Eclectic

In love with the new sounds, Ravel was excited by the gypsy music that would inspire him Tzigane, concert rapsody for violin and orchestra (1924). Bouguereau painting.

An eclectic composer par excellence, Ravel knew how to take advantage of his interest in music of all origins. The Basque Country (Trio in A minor) had a notorious influence on his musical imaginary and it was his intention to compose the concert Zazpiak Bat, whose title (see Zazpiak Bat) mentions the unity of the Basque nation of the seven provinces or Euskal Herria. However, Ravel abandoned this piece and used its nationalist themes and rhythms in other of his pieces. He was also greatly influenced by Spain (Habanera, Pavana for a deceased infanta, Spanish Rhapsody, Bolero, Don Quixote to Dulcinea), all of which greatly contributed to his international renown, and also consolidated the image of a musician always in love with rhythm and popular music. The Orient (Shéhérazade, Introduction and Allegro, My Mother the Goose), Greece (Daphnis et Chloé, Greek folk songs) and gypsy music (Tzigane) inspired him as well.

Afro-American music, which Gershwin helped him discover during the 1928 American tour, fascinated Ravel. He introduced numerous touches in the works of his last creative period (ragtime in The Boy and the Sortileges, blues in the second movement of the Violin Sonata, sounds of jazz in the Concierto in G and in the Concierto for the left hand).

Finally, it is necessary to underline the fascination that the world of childhood exerted on Ravel. Whether in his own life (absolute, almost childlike attachment to his mother, collection of mechanical toys...) or in his work (in My mother the goose and The boy and the spells ), Ravel regularly expressed extreme sensitivity and a pronounced taste for the fantastic and the world of dreams.

The sound goldsmith

"I simply refuse to confuse the artist's conscience, which is one thing, with his sincerity, which is another (...). This consciousness demands that we develop in us the good worker. My goal is, then, technical perfection. I can try to reach her endlessly, since I'm sure I can never reach her. The important thing is always getting closer and closer. Art, without a doubt, has other effects, but the artist, in my opinion, must have no other objective." (Ravel, Esquisse autobiographique1928).

This search for perfection contributed both to its success with the general public and to its discredit with some critics. While his friend Stravinsky recalled his meticulousness in calling him a "Swiss watchmaker", some only considered his music empty, cold or artificial. Ravel, who never renounced his love for artifice and mechanisms, always sought, quoting Edgar Allan Poe, "the midpoint between sensitivity and intelligence", he replied with a phrase that has become famous: "But Can't people get used to the idea that I'm "artificial" by nature?"

It seems that composing was never an easy thing for Ravel. Where Mozart might have allowed his imagination free rein, his utter refusal to yield to that "hateful sincerity of the artist" gave him the pleasure of self-imposed difficulty, let alone resolved difficulty. This is surely what explains the not so large number of works, in a creative period of around forty years. For the same reasons, several of Ravel's projects remained unfinished, the most significant being La Cloche engloutie (The Buried Bell, 1906 opera project). Fully aware of his character, Ravel was able to confide to Manuel Rosenthal: «Yes, my genius, it's true, I have it. But what does this really mean? Ah well, if everyone knew how to work like I know how to work, everyone would do works as brilliant as mine."

In any case, from the incredible overture of La hora española to the onomatopoeia of El niño y los sortilegios, to the obstinate B-flat pedal of Gibet in Gaspard de la nuit to the rhythmic and temporal rigidity of the Bolero, this stubbornness in the search for perfection and this taste for risk are an integral part of the ravelian legend.

The Orchestrator

In a celebration for his birthday on March 7, 1928, Ravel smoking and sitting on the piano with the singer Éva Gauthier, on the right (on foot and with a handkerchief in the sack) director Leide-Tedesco, and on the right side, George Gershwin. Photo of the American tour of the composer.

Ravel was, according to Marcel Marnat "the greatest French orchestrator", and according to the opinion of numerous music lovers, specialists or not, one of the best orchestrators in the history of Western music. Doesn't his most famous work, the Bolero , owe its success only to the variation of timbres and the immense orchestral crescendo ?

A seasoned master of timbre (although not himself an adept of numerous instruments), knowing how to find the most subtle harmonious balance, Ravel knew how to transcend numerous original works (generally written for piano) and give them a new dimension, both works theirs (My mother the goose, 1912, Noble and sentimental waltzes, 1912, Alborada del gracious, 1918, Couperin's grave , 1919...) as well as his eminent colleagues: Mussorgsky (Khovanschina, 1913), Schumann (Carnival, 1914), Chabrier (Menuet pompeux, 1918), Debussy (Sarabande et Danse, 1923) or even Chopin (Study, Nocturne and Waltz, 1923).

But it would be the orchestration of the famous Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzki for the Boston Symphony Orchestra completed in 1922, that definitively established Ravel's international reputation in The matter. His version is still referential and eclipses that of other composers who have tried it. The Pictures orchestrated by Ravel are, together with the Bolero, one of the most performed French works abroad.

The interpreter

Ravel was a good pianist without being a virtuoso (some of his own compositions, in particular the Concerto in G, which he himself dreamed of performing, remained inaccessible to him). During his American tour in 1928, he played his Sonatina , accompanied on his Violin Sonata and some of his songs.

It could be said, too, that as a conductor, he never matched his quality as an orchestrator. The two recordings he left behind (a Bolero from 1930 and a Concerto in G from 1932) and the testimonies of his time confirm that Ravel was not a virtuoso in the podium.

Main works

	Pavana for a deceased infant Interpreted by Wasei Duo
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The work of Maurice Ravel is generally characterized by:

• Its relatively modest amount compared to that of some of its contemporaries.
• His great diversity, since he addressed all musical forms except for religious music
• Its remarkable proportion of recognized masterpieces.

The complete catalogue established by Arbie Orenstein and completed by Marcel Marnat counts 111 works completed by Maurice Ravel between 1887 and 1933:

• 86 original works.
• 25 arrangements or adaptations.

The following 60 works are considered major:

Original works

Adapted works

Most Performed Works

Thus, the Bolero remained in first place in the SACEM world rights classification until 1993, closely followed by the orchestration of the Pictures of an Exhibition from Mussorgsky.

In 1994 and 1995, among the 10 most exported works from SACEM, five were by Ravel:

• Bolero
• Tables of an exhibition
• Daphnis et Chloé
• Concert in the sun
• My mother oca

Even in 2004, the Bolero occupied the third position.

References, notes and citations