Ravel gave his friend a photo of him in April 1924, writing April 2024

Somebody posted this photo of a book on social media. I still have to figure out which book it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HItYx9QmZSM

I am trying to play Ballade de la reine morte d'aimer and holy smokes those chords are ginormous!

The actor that plays Ravel in the coming film Boléro, Raphael Personnaz, just posted a short video of Boléro being played on a musicbox and his profile says "Le 06/03: « Boléro » d’Anne Fontaine".

If I understand the date correctly as a dd/mm format it says March 6th, the day before Ravel's 149th birthday.

Oops I put the accent on the wrong letter in the title

I just saw this 2001 documentary on YouTube (https://youtu.be/MB9qaqGU6VY?si=5akkfjuorMVaP6DY).

For me there are two most amazing things with this documentary: first it features Richard Cowan starring as Dr. Clovis Vincent who sang in French (in the style of an opera) about Ravel's brain conditions. That is both weird and moving. Second, it uses a lot of black-and-white clips depicting Ravel. We all know that there are very few video clips of Ravel himself, so most of those clips are not of the real Ravel - Thierry Costa was playing Ravel in that documentary. It reminds me of how we miss the man in our world...

Edit: Now that I have finished watching, I changed my mind - I think most of the black-and-white clips are indeed of Ravel. I of course don't know him enough to tell if it is really him, but that clip of his dead body looks exactly the same as the photo you can find online. It is possible that there are a lot of Ravel clips hidden in archives. Anyway, this documentary is precious; if the clips are indeed Ravel, that's the most Ravel clips you can find anywhere on the Internet; if they are not, they are still beautiful.

Let me know what you think of it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05gRs_b1dqg

- The director is Anne Fontaine. Ravel is played by Raphael Personnaz.
- Filming started this year March 9 and finished in May. The film will be out in 2024.
- The story starts from Ravel's US tour and is mostly about the composition of Boléro.

This is the only photo available for now:

Ravel at the piano surrounded by women

Link to article:
https://www.kftv.com/news/2023/05/03/anne-fontaines-maurice-ravel-biopic-bolero-filming-in-france
https://newsinfrance.com/maurice-ravels-biopic-scheduled-for-2024-will-revolve-around-bolero/

The cast:

The cast

My personal feelings:
- I'd love to see Ravel depicted in a film, I'm excited. I had always thought Ravel's life was too uneventful to be made into a film.
- I don't really like that Ravel is always associated with Bolero. I hope this film will at least use some other great pieces and let people know that he didn't just write Bolero.
- I'm a bit worried when the articles mentioned "facing his old loves", because we all know he never fell in love.
- I wonder if they had filmed in Ravel's house in Montfort-l'Amaury! It would be so lovely to see him in his house again.

Years ago, I loaned this record (Alligator, by The National) to a friend who identified the introduction to The Geese of Beverly Road as being a work by Maurice Ravel. He loaned me a couple CDs at the time but I cannot for the life of me find the Ravel piece again. I'm hoping someone here can help!

A link to the song by The National is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHqkSEG9PQI

Many thanks!

The 2022-23 season is going to end soon. I only started to know about Ravel in January, when I went to a performance of the Left Hand Concerto by Bertrand Chamayou and was shocked at how good it was. I then read about Paul Wittgenstein and all that story about the concerto. Then I went to a band performance of Le Tombeau de Couperin and was left speechless by Prelude, so I became a crazy fan of Ravel, read his biography and letter compilations, and attended every local concert that played his music (and told all my friends to go too). So far in five months, I've heard:

Pavane pour une infante defunte (piano x1) (band x1)
String quartet (x1)
Concerto in G (x3)
Concerto for the left hand (x1)
La valse (x1)
Bolero (x1)
Le Tombeau de Couperin (band x1)

In the coming two weeks, there is another performance of Le Tombeau de Couperin by the local orchestra, Piano Trio, and Miroirs by Seong-Jin Cho. I feel so blessed that this season they programmed so much Ravel - the program for the next season is out and there isn't much of him.

I'm gonna be analysing the way that Ravel depicts water in these pieces. If you have any insights about the techniques that Ravel uses or similarities and differences in regard to the representation of water, that would be really helpful.

I used to really think this piece was trash but something about it has clicked for me. Youtube comment sections seem to really hate it ("For every masterpiece there are 10,000 predecessors," as one person said) but I'd be curious to know your thoughts on this piece.

Hi guys! I’m currently studying Sonatine and I love it with my whole heart😭😭 but there are some questions I encountered when trying to analyze this piece:

1. Where are the main musical “landmarks” (the places that seem to mark important structural or expressive points) in the piece, and what makes them prominent? This is a guiding question in a book about music, and I am using it to study every piece, but I’m actually unsure where are the landmarks in sonatine.

2. Is this piece modal or diatonic? I thought it is diatonic since the Modere is F-sharp natural minor, Mouvement de Minuet is D-Sharp major, and Anime is F-Sharp minor. But some materials online claim that it is modal and that they are saying Modere uses an Aeolian Mode. So I am a bit confused about how can we distinguish between Aeolian Mode and natural minor.

3. Some research says that Ravel gained inspiration from Romeau and Couperin when writing Anime, but I am not sure which aspect of the work specifically did he gain inspiration from them (chord progression, structure, ways of development of theme?). I will keep thinking about that since I didn't even know Romeau and Couperin very well before this. I will listen to more of their works, but I would love to here some of your thoughts!

4. Some places in Sonatine sounds like mimicking symphony or harp sound to me, but I’m unsure if these are the true intentions of Ravel when he was composing this. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance:))

Have a listen: https://musescore.com/user/38467469/scores/8656161

Can anyone recommend a recording of Ravel’s piano trio with a really good performance of the 4th movement.

I love the piece but the final movement always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. The tension doesn’t get resolved in as satisfying a way as Ravel usually manages, or something like that. Or maybe it’s just too drawn out. I can’t seem to reason out what he was trying to accomplish with it.

Even worse, I recall reading in his biography by Roger Nichols that he—in front of a pupil—tossed an early draft into the fireplace, causing the pupil to ask why he would discard a perfectly good piece of music. Ravel said something like ‘it was good music, but not a good ending for this piece.’ (I wish I could hear that draft!)

Anyway, if anyone likes that movement I’d like to hear their thoughts or to check out their favorite recording of it. Maybe I’ll like a different version better.

Thanks!

I’ve been listening to multiple recordings of it, and wanted to try it out!

In his Conservatoire days, Ravel wrote lots of pieces, especially fugues, that are now lost. But how do we today know they existed?