Maurice Ravel at the piano.
“It constitutes an experiment in a very special and limited direction, and should not be suspected of aiming at achieving other - or more - than it actually does,” commented Maurice Ravel in a 1931 interview with The Daily Telegraph regarding his recent composition. The composer was in shock, to put it mildly. Boléro, the piece which was just a study in sustained crescendo, was quickly gaining popularity in ways that he had not foreseen. He feared it might become his best known work. And to some extent, this fear came true.
Today, Ravel’s Boléro is one of the most popular works of classical music in the world. Yet Boléro is hardly representative of the vast musical language that Ravel masterfully commanded. The composer wrote a plethora of works, ranging from operas and ballets to works for chamber group and solo piano. He found inspiration from many things, from the Basque region where he was born, to poetry and nature. His piano pieces are lauded as some of the most beautiful and complex in classical repertoire; his mixed ensemble works greatly expanded views on orchestration and tone. While Boléro may indeed be one of Ravel’s most familiar works, his prominence as one of the 20th century’s greatest composers is without dispute.
March 7, 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth. WFMT will celebrate the occasion on March 4 by airing a special program dedicated to the life and art of the composer, hosted by Jon Tolansky.
In the meantime, here are some of Ravel’s lesser known works that WFMT also recommends.
1. Sonata for Violin and Piano in A minor (discovered posthumously, written in 1897)
Despite its “posthumous” title, this Sonata for Violin and Piano in A minor is actually the earliest example we have of Ravel writing in sonata form. It was written when the composer was 22 and a student at the Paris Conservatoire, during the composer’s second stint at the school (he had been expelled his first time). Luckily he found himself in the composition class of Gabriel Fauré, who would become one of the rising Ravel’s supporters. It’s possible this sonata was created as an assignment for one of the elder composer’s classes.
The sonata bears the title posthumous because it wasn’t published until several years after the composer’s death. Ravel chose not to publish it during his lifetime, probably for the same reasons that many hesitate to publish works they created as students: they feel like the works are not mature, or perhaps too influenced by the works of their teachers. And though this piece definitely carries the influence of César Franck and Fauré, it still stands alone as a good example of early Ravel.
2. Prix de Rome Highlights - Tout est lumière (1901), Myrrha (1901), L’Aurore (1905)
Photo of Maurice Ravel in 1907 (Photo: Pierre Petit, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
L’Aurore for solo tenor, mixed choir, and orchestra, was Ravel’s last attempt at submitting for the Prix de Rome. The coveted prize was an important one for all young artists: it not only provided competitors with exposure to professionals in their respective field, but also awarded winners a five-year pension and the ability to work in Rome.
Ravel had participated in the competition 5 times between 1900 and 1905. Sometimes he treated the matter seriously. He placed second in 1901 with his submissions of the cantata Myrrha and the mixed choral/orchestral piece Tout est lumière (inspired by the romantic poetry of Victor Hugo). Other times, the composer’s submission seemed more like joke entries, with writing that caricatured the competitions’ strict guidelines.
Ravel submitted L’Aurore for his final attempt in 1905 and was promptly disqualified. The decision resulted in an uproar from the music community. Many suspected Théodore Dubois of engaging in favoritism. Dubois, a contest judge, was also head of the Paris Conservatory where Ravel studied… and notoriously disliked the young composer. Accusations of favoritism only increased when it was revealed that the only participants who had passed were students of Dubois’ colleague Charles Lenepveu.
Regardless, the resulting works that emerged from Ravel’s attempts at the Prix de Rome showed a sensitivity towards choral colors and orchestral textures that became a signature of his works.
3. Histoires naturelles (1906)
Ravel’s cycle for solo voice and piano was inspired by the poetry of French poet Jules Renard. Histoires Naturelles sets music to five poems by Renard: The Peacock, The Cricket, The Swan, The Kingfisher, The Guinea Fowl. The pieces are Ravel’s first attempt at a song cycle and caused a bit of a stir at its premiere. Rather than building a piano part that complements the melody, Ravel focused on writing music that correlates directly to the nature of the text itself. When the text was cruel, so was the music. More controversy came from Ravel's instruction for the singer to adopt an "everyday" French pronunciation instead of the heightened pronunciation that was in vogue at the time. In fact, a critic for Parisian magazine La Revue musicale was at the premiere of Histoires Naturelles, and wrote in vol. 3 of 1907 that, “it would be difficult to mock music and musicians more intolerably.”
The piece shares some similarities with Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand: in particular, the opening movement Le Paon in its rhythms and tonality.
Maurice Ravel near his childhood home of Ciboure (Basque) 1914 (Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
4. L'heure espagnole (1911)
This one-act comic opera was Ravel’s first foray into the opera world! It is directly inspired by a comedic play of the same name by Franc-Nohain. The story follows an oblivious clockmaker and his vain wife, who tries to seduce men while he’s off doing repairs. Ravel was inspired to turn the story into an opera after seeing the play in 1906. He thought the goofy story might please his father, Pierre-Joseph Ravel, an inventor with a love for opera who often invited his children into his workshop.
In L’heure espagnole, Ravel wanted to reflect the feeling of an Italian Opera buffa, a farcical form of comic opera. In addition to beautiful passages, there are moments of musical comedy, from various metronomes to simulate “ticking clocks ”, to springs, church bells chimes, and comical tuba noises. Ravel’s opera was debuted by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on May 19, 1911. It was not performed again in Ravel’s lifetime, but has occasionally been staged by smaller opera companies since.
5. Orchestration of Schumann’s Carnaval (original 1834; arrangement 1914)
Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is arguably one of the most beloved arrangements of today. Yet long before Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Ravel to take on Mussorgsky, Ravel was already working on various other orchestral arrangements of piano music. One of the grandest of these lesser known projects was his orchestration of Schumann’s Carnaval.
Robert Schumann’s Carnaval is a piano piece made up of 21 movements, each one representing different characters or events at a masked ball before the start of Lent. Ravel was initially approached by ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky with the idea of arranging the whole piece for use in a ballet. Unfortunately, the project was ill-fated. Ravel had just finished work on the fourth movement when the ballet was suddenly and unceremoniously canceled. With nowhere to publish the project, Ravel’s sketches were shelved and only performed years later.
The movements of Ravel’s Carnaval orchestration reveal the composer in a different light. While there are still moments of shimmering strings and floating woodwinds, Ravel also employs more of a heavier hand in this arrangement, at times feeling almost more Viennese or German in nature.
6. Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé (1914)
Out of Ravel’s entire repertoire, it was Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé that Igor Stravinsky reportedly enjoyed the best. The work for chamber orchestra and mezzo-soprano soloist takes on the difficult task of setting to music the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé.
The French poet belonged to the symbolist movement in literature, which sought to convey meaning through very subtle, layered, and metaphorical language. Their abstruseness frustrated some readers, but the poems excited the imagination of many French musicians at the time, particularly when utilized as lyrics. At the time that Ravel was composing settings of three Mallarmé poems, Debussy was doing the exact same thing. To make matters worse, the composers found out they even chose two of the exact same poems! Critics at the time were divided as to which composer’s setting they preferred, and the composers’ professional and social relationship became strained.
This song cycle displays Ravel’s masterful use of instrumentation, dynamics and classical approach to structure, resulting in a piece that feels almost otherworldly.
7. Sonata for Violin and Cello (1920-1922)
When Claude Debussy passed away in March of 1920, Parisian music magazine La Revue musicale asked a handful of composers to compose a piece in his honor. Ravel was one of them. The two had a complicated relationship; an initial friendship that blossomed in the 1890s was quickly strained and ultimately terminated due to public rivalry, spats of jealousy, and Debussy’s stormy relationships with people in their mutual circles. Nevertheless, Ravel would respect Debussy’s work for the rest of his life. In a quote often attributed to Ravel, he is reported to have said, “For Debussy, the musician and the man, I have profound admiration.”
The Sonata for Violin and Cello is Ravel’s contribution to the musical collection known as Le Tombeau de Claude Debussy (The Tomb of Claude Debussy). The work’s chamber music scale paid tribute to Debussy’s dalliance with the art form in his later works . Ravel also tried invoking Debussy through detailed attention to the melodies. Both the cello and violin writing is very exposed and even at times polyphonic: conventional harmony is relatively nonexistent. With many moments of major/minor duality, the piece presents a difficult challenge for both violinist and cellist. Was this also meant to symbolize the difficult relationship between the two men? One can theorize, but Ravel never specified.
8. Ronsard à son âme (1923-1924)
If Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello is an example of the composer’s most complex works, Ronsard à son âme is just the opposite. Parisian magazine Revue musicale commissioned a work to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the birth of 14th century French poet Pierre de Ronsard. This piece was Ravel’s contribution.
It is Ravel’s shortest piece, around two-and-a-half minutes in length, stunningly beautiful in its simplicity. The words are from Ronsard’s piece “À son âme” - a very soft and gentle poem about passing away. The piece uses mostly open fifths in the piano part, allowing for a beautiful open color outside of major or minor tonality.
1st scene of Colette and Maurice Ravel's opera L'enfant et les sortilèges, as performed at the Paris première at the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique on 1 February 1926. (Photo: Anonymous, published by Durand et Cie. Restored by Adam Cuerden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
9. L'enfant et les sortilèges (1925)
In 1914, the head of the Paris Opera, Jacques Rouché, paired Ravel with the novelist Colette for the commission of a new ballet. Colette fleshed out a scenario, imagining a naughty child whose backyard comes alive at night to teach him a lesson. Ravel suggested they expand the scenario into a full blown opera. Then, World War I struck. Ravel enlisted as an ambulance driver and all further work on the project was delayed for years.
Upon revisiting the premise nearly a decade later, the creative duo made it even more fantastical in nature. Perhaps the desire to add more fantasy was triggered by memories of war fresh in their minds. A child’s tantrum soon gave way to sassy teapots, anthropomorphic animals, and fireplaces that warned about burning bad children. Yet imaginative concepts and childlike whimsy were nothing new to Ravel. Though he wasn’t a parent, Ravel loved children and would often spoil the kids of his close companions. It is this whimsy and glee that is reflected in the piece’s instrumentation. In addition to your typical instrumentation, the score calls for crotales, a slide whistle, a piccolo timpani and even a cheese grater!
10. Chansons madécasses (1925-1926)
The song cycle Chansons Madécasses (Madagascar Songs) represents one of Ravel’s more dissonant and forceful pieces - in terms of both music and content. In the spring of 1925, Ravel received a commission from American patron-of-the-arts Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who wanted a piece for female voice, piano, cello and flute. He delivered a song cycle that was experimental and evocative in a manner unusual for the rather private composer.
Text for the song cycle was taken from a collection of short poems by Evariste de Forge de Parny. Having been born to a colonizer family, Parny was, nonetheless, vehemently against slavery. He even claimed to have translated poems from the Malagasay people of Madagascar; to this day, there is little evidence confirming. Nonetheless, the poems exploring racism, eroticism, and violence left an impact on many French artists at the time including Ravel.
In Chansons Madécasses, Ravel sets three poems to music, incorporating many highly dramatic passages - at times utilizing harsh timbres and two keys at once (bi-tonality). There’s even a part in the score where Ravel instructs the flute to play “quasi tromba” (like a trumpet)!
In many ways, this piece remains one of Ravel’s mysteries. He was a composer with a tendency towards aromantic, apolitical material. Why then were these texts the ones chosen for the commission, with texts ranging from erotic to overtly anti-slavery? Why choose poems from a male perspective when the performer was to be a female soprano? How did Ravel manage to (somewhat) invoke folk traditions from Madagascar when he had never travelled to that country? These questions only add to the curious and powerful nature of this song cycle, which has now been arranged for various voice types.
Celebrate the 150th anniversary of Ravel's birth on March 4th, 2025 at 10 pm CT with Maurice Ravel: Artist and Man – an Anniversary Portrait.
