Stamp of the Month: March 2025

Maurice Ravel

The French composer Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875 in Ciboure in the Pyrénées-Atlantique department. He died in Paris in 1937. March 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of his birth.
 
Ravel began studying at the Paris Conservatory in 1889, which lasted a total of 16 years. After his studies, he worked as a pianist, conductor and accompanist for his own works. Unfortunately, this career was ended by paralysis in 1933, and from then on Ravel devoted himself solely to composition.

Monaco 21.3.2025

Ravel’s early works were influenced primarily by Liszt, Chabrier, Fauré and Rimsky-Korsakov. However, his encounter with Claude Debussy, whose “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune” impressed him, was decisive for his own style. Ravel’s mother came from the Basque Country. The influence of Spanish folklore is therefore just as noticeable in Ravel’s compositions as the influence of jazz. Maurice Ravel also tried five times to win the so-called “Prix de Rome”, which is coveted among young French composers, but each time his compositions were rejected as being too avant-garde. Ravel’s best-known work is certainly his “Boléro”, which was actually written in 1928 as ballet music. He was inspired to write the ballet by Sergei Diaghilev, and the choreography was created by Bronislava Nijinska in 1929.
 

The video shows Ravel’s “Bolero” played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel at the closing concert of the Lucerne Festival, which was broadcast live in more than 50 cinemas across Europe on September 18, 2010.
 
Read an article about Ravel’s opera “L’enfant et les sortilèges”
from the current issue of “Musikus” here.