Maurice Ravel

Born in Ciboure, France, in 1875, Ravel received his training at the Paris Conservatoire. After the First World War, Ravel became one of the most highly regarded protagonists of French musical life. As a conductor, pianist and song accompanist, he toured throughout Europe and, in 1928, also through the USA. In the early 1930s, Ravel's health deteriorated, and he composed no new works after 1933. Ravel's piano cycles Miroirs (1904/05), Gaspard de la nuit (1908), Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911) and Le Tombeau de Couperin (1914/17) – some of which were also arranged for orchestra – as well as his two piano concertos (1929–31). Ravel's orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's piano cycle Pictures at an Exhibition is also part of the musical canon. The two operas L’Heure espagnole (1907–09) and L’Enfant et les sortilèges (1919–25) have become firmly established in the repertoire, while two further opera projects (Olympia based on E. T. A. Hoffmann and La Cloche engloutie based on Gerhart Hauptmann) remained unfinished. Ravel's independent ballet music includes Daphnis et Chloé (1912) – a commission from Sergey Diaghilev – La Valse (1919/20) and Boléro (1928). He died in Paris in 1937,