Ravel: Piano Works, Vol. 1

Francois

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Cat No: 8550683

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099568326

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: RAVEL

Description
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)Piano Works, Vol. 1La paradePavane pour une infante defunte Serenade grotesque A la mani?¿re de Chabrier A la mani?¿re de Borodine Menuet antique Jeux d'eauMenuet sur le nom de Haydn Prelude Sonatine Miroirs From his father, a Swiss engineer, Ravelinherited a delight in precision and incidentally in mechanical toys, whilefrom his Basque mother he acquired a familiarity with something of Spanishculture. Born in the village of Ciboure in the Basque region of France in 1875, he spent his childhood and adolescence in Paris, starting piano lessons at the ageof seven and from the age of fourteen studying piano in the preparatory pianoclass of the Conservatoire. He left the Conservatoire in 1895, after failing towin the necessary prizes, but resumed studies there three years later underGabriel Faure. His repeated failure to win the Prix de Rome, even when wellestablished as a composer, disqualified in his fifth attempt in 1905, resultedin a scandal that led to changes in that august institution, of which Faurethen became director.Ravel's career continued successfully in the years before 1914 with a series of works of originality, including important additions to the piano repertoire, to the repertoire of French song and, with commissions from Diaghilev, to ballet. During the war he was enlisted in 1915 as a driver and the war years left relatively little time and will for composition, particularly with the death of his mother in 1917. By 1920, however, he had begun to recover his spirits and resumed work, although now spasmodically, with a series of compositions, including an orchestration of La valse, rejected by Diaghilev, causing a rupture in their relations, and a number of engagements as a pianist and conductor in concerts of his own works at home and abroad. All this was brought to an end by his protracted final illness, attributed initially to a taxi accident in 1932, which led to his eventual death in 1937.The piano piece La parade is a work of historical interest, rather than of any particular significance among Ravel's music for piano. It was written about the year 1898 for Antonine Meuni?¿re of the Paris Opera, designed for interpretive dancing at home. Ravel was accustomed to improvise at the piano for the dancing of Isadora Duncan, and La parade may be considered a surviving example of this activity. It consists of a number of dances, including two marches, two waltzes and a mazurka. The Pavane pour une infante defunte, its title chosen for euphony rather than for any other purpose, was written in 1899 and later orchestrated. Although a relatively minor work, it is among the most evocative of Ravel's compositions, in its nostalgic evocation of some remoter past, suggested by the rhythm of the old dance and the poignancy of its melodic line.Ravel's Serenade grotesque was written about the year 1893. As in the Pavane, there remains a detectable influence of Chabrier, as the
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