How private was Maurice Ravel’s private life? Well, to this day nobody has uncovered conclusive evidence that he ever had a sexual relationship. While his music is passionate and distinctive, Ravel’s personality remains mysterious. His friend and biographer Alexis Roland-Manuel

The Great War, as World War I was known at the time, inspired many works of music, often set to poetry. Maurice Ravel took inspiration from his many dead friends to create a piano work, Le tombeau de Couperin (1914-1917),

On 21 September 1927, Anton Webern penned an extended letter to Maurice Ravel. “Although we have never met, I write on behalf of my mentor Arnold Schoenberg to express his thanks for all your efforts to facilitate his upcoming appearance

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