Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist, and conductor. He is often linked with Impressionism, a musical style, along with his older contemporary, Claude Debussy. However, both composers did not agree with being called Impressionist. During the 1920s and 1930s, Ravel was widely considered the greatest living composer in France.

Ravel was born into a family that loved music. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, a top music school in France. However, the school’s traditional teachers did not treat him fairly, which caused controversy. After leaving the conservatoire, Ravel developed his own musical style, known for its clear structure. His work included influences from modernism, the Baroque era, neoclassicism, and later, jazz. He often experimented with musical forms, as seen in his famous piece Boléro (1928), where repeated musical phrases replace traditional development. Ravel was highly skilled in arranging music for orchestras. His most famous orchestral arrangement is his 1922 version of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

Ravel worked very slowly and carefully, producing fewer compositions than many of his peers. His works include piano pieces, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet scores, two operas, and eight song cycles. He did not write symphonies or church music. Many of his compositions exist in two versions: first as piano scores, later arranged for orchestra. Some of his piano music, like Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is extremely challenging to play. His orchestral works, such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912), require precise balance during performances.

Ravel was one of the first composers to see the value of recordings in sharing music with a larger audience. From the 1920s onward, despite not being a highly skilled pianist or conductor, he participated in recordings of his own works. Other recordings were made under his guidance.

Life and career

Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure, France, near Biarritz, 18 kilometers (11 miles) from the Spanish border. His father, Pierre-Joseph Ravel, was an educated and successful engineer, inventor, and manufacturer, born in Versoix near the Franco-Swiss border. His mother, Marie, born Delouart, was Basque but grew up in Madrid. In the 19th century, Joseph married Marie, who was not born to married parents and had limited education, which was considered below his social standing. However, their marriage was happy. Some of Joseph's inventions were successful, including an early internal combustion engine and a famous circus machine called the "Whirlwind of Death," which was a popular attraction until an accident occurred at Barnum and Bailey's Circus in 1903.

Both of Ravel’s parents were Roman Catholics. Marie also had a habit of thinking independently, a trait that influenced her older son. Ravel was baptized in the Ciboure parish church six days after his birth. The family moved to Paris three months later, and a younger son, Édouard, was born there. Maurice was especially close to his mother, whose Basque-Spanish heritage strongly influenced his life and music. His earliest memories included folk songs she sang to him. The family was not wealthy, but they lived comfortably, and the two boys had happy childhoods.

Ravel’s father enjoyed taking his sons to factories to see new machines, but he also had a strong interest in music and culture. Later in life, Ravel recalled, "Throughout my childhood, I was sensitive to music. My father, who was more educated in this art than most amateurs, helped develop my musical taste and encouraged my enthusiasm from an early age." There is no record that Ravel received formal schooling in his early years. His biographer, Roger Nichols, suggests that his father may have been his main teacher.

At age seven, Ravel began piano lessons with Henri Ghys, a friend of Emmanuel Chabrier. Five years later, in 1887, he started studying harmony, counterpoint, and composition with Charles-René, a student of Léo Delibes. Although not a child prodigy, Ravel was a highly musical boy. Charles-René noted that Ravel’s understanding of music came naturally to him, "and not, as in the case of so many others, the result of effort." Ravel’s earliest known compositions date from this time: variations on a chorale by Schumann, variations on a theme by Grieg, and a single movement of a piano sonata. These works survive only in incomplete form.

In 1888, Ravel met the young pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became a lifelong friend and a key interpreter of Ravel’s works. Viñes also helped connect Ravel to Spanish music. Both shared an interest in Wagner, Russian music, and the writings of Poe, Baudelaire, and Mallarmé. At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, Ravel was deeply impressed by new Russian works conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. This music had a lasting effect on Ravel and his older contemporary, Claude Debussy, as did the unique sound of the Javanese gamelan, also heard during the Exposition.

Émile Decombes became Ravel’s piano teacher in 1889. That same year, Ravel gave his first public performance. At age fourteen, he played in a concert at the Salle Érard with other students of Decombes, including Reynaldo Hahn and Alfred Cortot.

With his parents’ support, Ravel applied to enter France’s most important music school, the Conservatoire de Paris. In November 1889, playing music by Chopin, he passed the exam for admission to the preparatory piano class taught by Eugène Anthiome. Ravel won the first prize in the Conservatoire’s piano competition in 1891, but he did not stand out as a student otherwise. However, these years marked significant progress in his development as a composer. Musicologist Arbie Orenstein wrote that the 1890s were a time of "immense growth… from adolescence to maturity" for Ravel.

In 1891, Ravel advanced to the classes of Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot for piano and Émile Pessard for harmony. He made steady but unremarkable progress, with encouragement from Bériot. Musicologist Barbara L. Kelly noted that Ravel was "only teachable on his own terms." His later teacher, Gabriel Fauré, understood this, but the Conservatoire’s conservative faculty did not accept it. Ravel was expelled in 1895 without winning more prizes. His earliest surviving complete works from this time include Sérénade grotesque for piano and Ballade de la Reine morte d’aimer, a song based on a poem by Roland de Marès (both 1893).

Ravel was not as dedicated to piano study as his peers, such as Viñes and Cortot. It was clear that as a pianist, he would never match them, and his main goal was to become a composer. From this point, he focused on composition. His works from this period include songs like Un grand sommeil noir and D’Anne jouant de l’espinette to poems by Paul Verlaine and Clément Marot, and piano pieces such as Menuet antique and Habanera (for four hands), the latter later included in Rapsodie espagnole. Around this time, Joseph Ravel introduced his son to Erik Satie, who earned a living as a café pianist. Ravel was among the first musicians—Debussy was another—who recognized Satie’s originality and talent. Satie’s experiments with musical form inspired Ravel, who called them "of inestimable value."

In 1897, Ravel was readmitted to the Conservatoire, studying composition with Fauré and taking private lessons in counterpoint with André Gedalge. Both teachers, especially Fauré, held him in high regard and greatly influenced his development as a composer. As Ravel’s studies continued, Fauré noted "a distinct gain in maturity… engaging wealth of imagination." However, Ravel’s position at the Conservatoire was weakened by the hostility of the Director, Th

Music

Marcel Marnat's list of Ravel's complete works includes eighty-five pieces, many of which were not finished or abandoned. Although this number is smaller than the works created by Ravel's main contemporaries, it is larger because Ravel often wrote pieces for piano first and later rewrote them for orchestra. About sixty of Ravel's works can be performed; more than half of these are instrumental. Ravel composed music for piano, chamber ensembles, two piano concertos, ballets, operas, and song cycles. He did not write any symphonies or religious music.

Ravel used ideas from many French composers, including Couperin, Rameau, Fauré, Satie, and Debussy. He was also influenced by foreign composers like Mozart, Schubert, Liszt, and Chopin. Ravel saw himself as a classicist, often using traditional musical structures, such as the ternary form, to present new melodies, rhythms, and harmonies. Jazz influenced his later music, especially in the Piano Concerto and Violin Sonata.

Ravel believed that the melody was the most important part of a piece. He told Vaughan Williams that all important music has an implied melodic shape. His themes often use modes instead of major or minor scales. His music includes chords with ninth and eleventh intervals, as well as unresolved notes, like those in Valses nobles et sentimentales.

Ravel was interested in dance forms, such as the bolero, pavane, minuet, waltz, and passacaglia. He included references to different cultures in his music, such as Hebraic, Greek, Hungarian, and gypsy themes. He also wrote short pieces inspired by composers like Borodin, Chabrier, Fauré, and Haydn, using their styles in his own way. Literature, especially the works of Edgar Allan Poe, influenced Ravel. He believed that true art balances intellect and emotion.

Ravel completed two operas and worked on three others that were not finished. The unfinished operas were Olympia, La cloche engloutie, and Jeanne d'Arc. Olympia was based on a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, but Ravel only made early sketches. La cloche engloutie was inspired by a play by Hauptmann, but Ravel abandoned it. Jeanne d'Arc was to be a full-length opera about Joan of Arc, but Ravel's illness prevented him from completing it.

Ravel's first completed opera was L'heure espagnole (1911), described as a "musical comedy." It is one of several works Ravel wrote that reflect Spanish culture. Critics note that Ravel used the modern orchestra to highlight comic effects. His vocal writing was praised for being skillful and dramatic. Some critics found the characters in the opera to be artificial, but others admired the emotional depth of the music.

Ravel's second opera, L'enfant et les sortilèges (1926), is a "lyrical fantasy" based on a libretto by Colette. It was originally planned as a ballet but changed to an opera. The work includes jazz elements and bitonality, which some audiences found unusual. Critics like Nichols saw deep emotion in the piece, despite its modern style. The music appears simple but hides complex connections between themes.

Although one-act operas are less commonly performed than full-length ones, Ravel's operas are regularly staged in France and other countries.

A large part of Ravel's music includes vocal works. Early compositions were written for competitions he did not win. His vocal music from this time was influenced by Debussy, with a style that used recitative-like singing and flexible rhythms. By 1906, Ravel further developed his use of French language in works like Histoires naturelles. Similar techniques appear in Trois poèmes de Mallarmé (1913). In Shéhérazade and Chansons madécasses, Ravel used exotic and sensual sounds in both singing and accompaniment.

Ravel's songs often include styles from folk traditions, such as in Cinq mélodies populaires grecques, Deux mélodies hébraïques, and Chants populaires. He set lyrics by poets like Marot, Léon-Paul Fargue, Leconte de Lisle, and Verlaine. For three songs from 1914–1915, Ravel wrote his own texts.

Ravel wrote for mixed choirs and male soloists but is best known for his songs for soprano and mezzo-soprano voices. Even when lyrics are spoken by a man, he often chose female voices. His most famous song cycle, Shéhérazade, is typically sung by a woman, though a tenor can also perform it.

During his lifetime, Ravel was most famous for his skill in orchestration. He studied how each instrument in the orchestra works, using their unique sounds and tones to their fullest. A critic, Alexis Roland-Manuel, said Ravel, along with Stravinsky, understood the sound of each instrument better than anyone else.

Only four of Ravel's works were written specifically for symphony orchestra: Rapsodie espagnole, La valse, and the two concertos. Other orchestral pieces were written for the stage, like Daphnis et Chloé, or as reworkings of piano pieces, such as Alborada del gracioso, Une barque sur l'ocean (Miroirs), Valses nobles et sentimentales, Ma mère l'Oye, Tzigane (originally for violin and piano), and Le tombeau de Couperin. In the orchestral versions, the music often becomes clearer and more precise. Some critics found the orchestral versions less compelling than the original piano versions, such as in Alborada del gracioso.

In some of his works from the 1920s, like Daphnis et Chloé, Ravel divided his upper string sections into six to eight parts, creating complex textures in the music.

Honours and legacy

Maurice Ravel refused not only the Légion d'honneur but also all other honors given by the French government. He did not allow his name to be considered for membership in the Institut de France. However, he accepted awards from other countries, such as an honorary membership in the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1921, the Belgian Ordre de Léopold in 1926, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1928.

After Ravel's death, his brother and legal representative, Édouard, transformed the composer's home in Montfort-l'Amaury into a museum. The house was kept as Ravel had left it. As of 2025, the museum remains open to the public for guided visits.

In his later years, Édouard Ravel said he planned to give most of the composer's property to the city of Paris to help create a Nobel Prize in music. However, he later changed his mind. After Édouard's death in 1960, the estate passed to different people. Although Ravel's music earned significant royalties, a 2000 report by the magazine Le Point noted it was unclear who received the money. A 2001 report by The Guardian stated that no royalties had been used to maintain the Ravel museum in Montfort-l'Amaury, which was in poor condition.

Many composers, including Satie and Stravinsky, created works dedicated to Ravel or written to honor his memory.