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Maurice-Joseph Ravel 1875-

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Cristal Avila Sicairos Professor Lawson Art 101 10 April 2012 Impressionist Composer Maurice Joseph Marvel Maurice Joseph Ravel was a French composer that was associated with the movement Impressionism which started in France. A movement which created an indefinable audience because of the variety of musical phenomena. To this day Ravels music still contains unsolved riddles that are very much like his persona. Ravels greatest compositions and works were during 1890 to 1932. Ravel executed his ideas into his music and during his personal life he created master pieces for his family. Delaurat Denotes and Pierre-Joseph gave birth to Maurice Joseph Ravel on 7 March 1875 in the city of Ciboure, France. Three months after Maurice was born the family moved to Paris, France where they continued to form a family and gave birth to Maurices younger brother. H.H. Stuckenshmidt writes 1882 Joseph found a piano teacher for Maurice, he was Henri Ghys (17). Ghys kept a journal about his students and their progress in many of his entries Ghys refers to Maurice as the intelligent child Maurice Ravel. Ravel was around seven at the time. Ravel receives all of his support and encouragement from his father Joseph. Joseph had decided that his son was going to be a musician and a successful one as well. Six years later Ravel began to study harmony with Charles Rene. According to Rollo Hugh Myers who wrote Ravel Life and Works in 1889 Ravel entered the Paris Conservatoire. Ravel was then placed in Anthiomes preparatory

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piano class, where he grew in a fascinating two years with a Premier Prix and a medal. At the age of fourteen Ravel met Claude Debussy. Dubussy made an extraordinary impact and influence in Ravels life. Debussy was also associated with the Impressionism movement. In 1889 was the year of the great exhibition Ravel must of enthralled by the oriental and other exotic music (15). Nevertheless Ravel grew up at a time where new ideas were being made not only in art but in music and politics. Ravels personal remains a mystery to everyone there are no records of any intimate relationships let alone marriages. Many modern composers connect his personality to his music mysterious and complicated to understand. According to Myers in 1932 Ravel was in a terrible car accident where he suffered a severe hit to the head. Which he never recovered from fully and years later leading him to a brain surgery which he never awoke from he died on 28 December at the age of 62. Maurice composed a total of 65 works and many more unfinished projects and sonatas. One of Maurices most famous pieces is Bolero. Where he composed the piece as a ballet along with the ballerina Ida Rubenstein she commissioned the piece. The piece was first introduced in 1928 the piece was made for a very large orchestra which included two flutes, piccolos, two bass clarinets, cor anglais, two snare drums, three trumpets, a trombone, tuba two saxophones, four horns, orchestral cymbals, tamtam, celsestal, harp, and strings such as violins, violas, and cellos. Myers writes about how the melody is passed on by the different instruments on a C note and while the celestetal doubles on a 3 and 4 octave making it over turn on each note of the melody (115). Ma Mere loye which translates into Mother Goose the piece was meant for a piano duet but later it was made into a solo piano piece by a friend of Ravel Jaques Charlet. In 1912 Was when Ravel really expanded his mind into ballet where he made a total of twelve pieces for the ballets. Premier Tablu was his second piece and the most known for in ballet it was first

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introduced in the Theater of art of Paris on January 19 12. In this piece there are two flutes, two clarinets in a b flat, two bassons. On the percussion side there are timpani, cymbals, tam tam, and a xylophone strings there are violins, harp, viliocellas (Myers 117). Musical Impressionism was started in France by Maurice and Debussy both are considered today the masters of the musical impressionism. What made impressionism so different from the rest was the fast movement of sounds in piano and the long atypical chords. Typical instruments used where woodwind, strings, harps, piano, and small chamber ensembles. Stuckenschmidt writes about how Marvel taught his students through a conversation and helping them with pointing out thins at the piano. Ravel was considered a Mozart because of his classical symmetry and the element of surprise. Ravel was in no sense a revolutionary musician he did not seek to disrupt either the grammar or the syntax of the music he was writing. Many other musicians say Maurice created his own language because of his on harmony he was capable of producing. There is so much more to learn about Maurice and his life works. It waould be very hard to understand how such a young man became a composer of so many pieces. Being involved in not only the impressionist, ballets, but also be able to teach his brilliance through his students, friends, and relatives. Ravel could never have been in unbuttoned mood because he was always correctly dressed as a composer.

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Work Cited Myers Highs Rollo. Ravel Life and Wrokds. New York and London. 1960Printed in the United Staes of America. Suckendschmidt H.H.. Maurice Ravel.Clinton Book Company, Phlidephia, and New York 1968