Impressionism and modernityMaurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel was born in the Basque Country by the ocean.
Maurice Ravel’s life
The big moments of this life, and what was happening in the world at the same time.
A life at a glance
- 1875👶 Birth
Born in Ciboure on 7 March to a Swiss engineer father and a Basque mother
- 1875🌍 Meanwhile
The Palais Garnier opera house opens in Paris
- 1889📚 Trainingage 14
Enters the Paris Conservatoire
- 1889🌍 Meanwhile
The Eiffel Tower opens for the World’s Fair
- 1899🎼 Workage 24
Pavane for a Dead Princess
- 1901🎼 Workage 26
Jeux d’eau, for piano
- 1905🎩 Careerage 30
Rejected for the Prix de Rome — the scandal forces the Conservatoire director to resign
- 1908🎼 Workage 33
Gaspard de la nuit; Rapsodie espagnole
- 1912🌍 Meanwhile
The Titanic sinks
- 1916🧳 Journeyage 41
Truck driver during the Great War, near Verdun
- 1922🌍 Meanwhile
Public radio broadcasting begins (BBC, Radio Tour Eiffel)
- 1937🕯️ Deathage 62
Dies in Paris on 28 December
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How does this music feel to you?
Excerpts of up to 90 seconds, freely licensed recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
Once upon a time…
Maurice Ravel was born in the Basque Country by the ocean. His dad was an inventor who loved machines. All his life Maurice loved mechanical toys and automata!
He wrote music as precise as a clock and as bright as fireworks. For two children he composed Mother Goose, inspired by fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, Beauty and the Beast…
In L’Enfant et les Sortilèges a naughty little boy sees his toys, furniture and animals come to life to teach him a lesson! And in Boléro the same melody comes back again and again, louder and louder, played by different instruments.
During the war he drove a truck he had nicknamed “Adélaïde”.
Maurice Ravel’s instruments
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