Ravel, Maurice (1875 – 1937)

[Quarky]

Ravel is a composer who can do little wrong, imv. I first met him at college, an LP containing his string quartet, paired wih that of Debussy.
Revisiting him a year or so back, I was stopped in my tracks by Introduction and Allegro.
There's an exotic and magical element in his music, for which I believe his mother Marie must take the blame.
Currently re-examining concerto for the left hand .

[Roslynmuse]

I'm so pleased that reviving this thread has prompted such positive responses! I have to say that for me he is right up there at the top, a very different sort of greatness to that of Bach or Wagner, but someone, like Chopin, who creates perfection in relatively small forms (although Daphnis is a marvellous large-scale canvas), and whose music continues to intrigue and provoke thought the more I hear it.

I still enjoy Boléro even fifty years after first hearing it; I imagine that orchestras hate rehearsing it though, which is why it is rarely played as well as it could be.

My story about the Glyndebourne double bill is that the Touring Opera was in Manchester in 1987 when I was a student and I got a free ticket to see it, up in the gods at the Palace Theatre. I loved the whole evening, felt as though I'd been transported into a different world. When I got home I was putting my ticket in the programme when I noticed that the ticket was actually for the next performance a couple of nights later - so I went again!!!

Samson Francois - I think he was nicknamed Scarbo?!! His recording of Ondine - slower than many - is I think beautiful. He gets his clefs wrong in La vallée des cloches though! (I love Percy Grainger's orchestration of that - Rattle recorded it on his EMI disc with Mother Goose and Sheherazade).

The recording of Tzigane with luthéal is the one I enjoy most - it isn't one of my favourite pieces but I like to hear that performance once in a while. The tiny Berceuse on Fauré's name is a lovely piece too.

I forgot to mention the Mallarmé poems yesterday - Suzanne Danco or Janet Baker are favourites. Extraordinary pieces!

[Roger Webb]

Listen to this post of BR-KLASSIK! https://www.br.de/radio/live/br-klas...-03-08/3621154

Starts in five minutes mind!

[Ian Thumwood]

Ravel is one of the first classical composers I got into, largely through the jazz arrangements of Gil Evans. I even went so far as learning some of his music.

It is wierd that, although I find composers who use colour in their writing really interesting, I have completely lost interest in his music. I should listen again as I think I could enjoy it However , I have to say he feels retrograde after Debussy and I am beginning to think that there is more Faure in Ravel than Debussy. I see Ravel to Debussy in the similar comparison between Takemitsu and Messiaen. The music of Ravel is ok but it just wants me to listen to Debussy more.

Ravel always gets cited as an influence on jazz I'm the 1920s. I have heard the piano concerto and alot of the solo piano music too. The Mother Goose suite impressed me when I heard it performed live in Basingstoke. I just feel that Ravel was a little behind the curve. He was roughly contemporary with Szymanowski
whose music I value more highly Probably harsh to consider Ravel as lightweight yet I am starting to appreciate that there is more to late 19th and early 20th century classical than Faure, Debussy and Ravel. Debussy is one of the composers who changed musical history.

The first half of 20th century was the apogee of classical music in my opinion I am intrigued to see Ravel considered in a Top Ten. I would plant Debussy in a Top Ten but still behind JSB, Bartok, Scriabin and Messiaen.