Famous Composers - Maurice Ravel
French composer Maurice Ravel was a major force in the history of 20th-century music. Ravel studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where his most influential teacher was the French composer Gabriel Faure. Because of the tonal color, harmonies, mood and extra-musical associations of much of his music, Ravel is often associated with the French impressionistic composer Claude Debussy. Unlike Debussy, however, he was strongly attracted to abstract, logical musical structures. His vivid, transparent orchestral colors rank him as one of the modern masters of orchestration. Ravel's impressionistic leanings are uppermost in the demanding piano suites Miroirs (1905) and Gaspard de la Nuit (1908) and in the Rhapsodie Espagnole, for orchestra (1908). He was gifted at evoking past eras in works such as the Pavane pour une Infante Defunte. His stage works include the operas L'heure Espagnole (1911) and L'enfant et les Sortileges (1925); the celebrated orchestral Bolero (1928), and the evocative, impressionistic ballet Daphnis et Chloe (1912). Ravel's last major work was the Piano Concerto in D (1931), for the left hand, written for the Viennese pianist Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961), who had lost his right arm in World War I. Stricken with a neurological disorder in 1932, Ravel died in Paris on Dec. 2, 1937.