Maurice Ravel was born on 7 March 1875 in the Basque town Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées located in France, situated close to the Spanish border near Biarritz. It was the village where his Basque mother, Marie Ravel, née Delouart, was born and

The promising career of pianist Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961), older brother of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was seemingly cut short by events of World War I. Paul had given his debut recital in December of 1913, an event that was enthusiastically

In the early morning hours of 28 December 1937, Maurice Ravel lapsed into a coma and died aged 62. The composer had entered a clinic on rue Boileau in Paris for neurological tests. In the event, exploratory brain surgery—apparently without

Composed between 1919 and 1921, La Valse by Maurice Ravel premiered on 12th December 1920 in Paris. On that occasion, Camille Chevillard conducted the Lamoureux Orchestra of Paris in a performance of the orchestral version. Ravel and Alfredo Casella had

Nestled somewhere in Ravel’s output there resides a curious set of piano pieces, entitled Le Tombeau de Couperin – literally, Couperin’s Tomb. The set of six piano pieces were composed between 1914 and 1917; four of the six then went

Popular in concert programmes and a staple of the pianist’s repertoire, Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin is the last work he wrote for solo piano. It cleverly melds his sensibilities with a full appreciation of his Baroque antecedents, notably the brilliant

It has been said that a performance of Ravel’s Bolero begins every 10 minutes somewhere in the world. The Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein, a close friend and financial supporter of Ravel, commissioned the piece. Originally, it was part of a

“Gaspard has been a devil in coming, but that is only logical since it was he who is the author of the poems.” – Maurice Ravel Considered to be one of the most fearsomely difficult pieces in the pianist’s repertoire