Famous composers

CLAUDE DEBUSSY

SynopsisClaude Debussy was born into a poor family in France in 1862, but his obvious gift at the piano sent him to the Paris Conservatory at age 11, where his instructors and fellow students recognized his talent but often found his attempts at musical innovation strange. At age 22, he won the Prix de Rome, which financed two years of further musical study in the Italian capital. When he was just 22 years old, Debussy entered his cantata L'Enfant prodigue (The Prodigal Child) in the Prix de Rome, a competition for composers.

COMPOSITIONS

MAURICE RAVEL

Synopsis• Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875, in

Ciboure, France. Ravel was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire at age 14, and later studied with Gabriel Fauré. His ballet Daphnis et Chloé was commissioned by Sergey Diaghilev. Other pieces include the the orchestral works La Valse and Boléro. Ravel remains the most widely popular of all French composers. Ravel died in Paris in 1937.

COMPOSITIONS

À la manière de

• This brief piece, together with "A la maniere de Borodin", was Ravel's contribution to an anthology by Alfredo Casella of pieces written in the style of other composers. Written in 1913, this was an homage to a composer much admired by Ravel. The piece is a paraphrase on a theme that appears in Gounod's "Faust". It evokes the elegant style of Chabrier in a waltz with lots of rubato with a subtle touch of melancholy.

Alborada del Gracioso

• In 1918, almost 14 years after originally composing the work, Maurice Ravel made an orchestral version of Alborada del gracioso (The Jester's Morning Serenade), the fourth of the pieces that make up Miroirs (1904-1905). While the original piano version remains a recital favorite, the orchestral version has enjoyed even greater popularity as a concert-hall staple.

Boléro

• Boléro is easily its composer's most famous work. It is famous to historians and record-books for ostensibly containing the longest-sustained single crescendo anywhere in the orchestral repertory; it is famous to collectors of anecdotes for having been humorously dubbed a "piece for orchestra without music" by Ravel; and it is famous to musicians and music lovers for being both the most repetitive 15 minutes of music they are likely to play/hear and also one of the most absolutely well-composed 15 such minutes.

Ballade de la reine morte d'aimer

• The "Ballade de la Reine morte d'aimer" reveals some of his earliest influences, notably Wagner, the Russian school, Chabrier, and Erik Satie. Composed in 1893, this song betrays Ravel's first meeting with Satie through its generous use of modal harmonies. Opening in the Dorian mode and remaining in the key of B-natural throughout, it also reflects the ironic and archaic flavor of the text by the little-known Belgian author and journalist Roland de Marès (1874-1955).

Gaspard de la nuit

• Though competent at the piano, Ravel was no virtuoso; so, when he set out to compose a work for the instrument that would be, in his own words, "more difficult than [Balakirev's] Islamey," he drew heavily on the brilliant pianistic style of Franz Liszt to fulfill his ambition. The resulting three-part suite, Gaspard de la nuit (1908), forever changed the technical landscape of keyboard music. Perhaps pianist Alfred Cortot put it best when he called the work "one of the most extraordinary examples of instrumental ingenuity which the industry of composers has ever produced."

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