Piano Masterpieces of Maurice Ravel
Jun 2013 · Courier Corporation
Ebook
128
Pages
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About this ebook
"Ravel is one of the rare French composers who have left so strong an imprint on their art that music after them can never be the same." — Alexis Roland-Manuel.
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) ranks as one of the most original French composers of his time, a consummate craftsman who continually sought perfection of form and style, and whose unique harmonic language was unmistakably his own. Along with Debussy, he stands in the front rank of great modern composers for the piano and his piano music includes a number of masterpieces considered vital to the repertoire of any serious pianist. This handsome, affordable volume reprints a rich selection of his compositions: "Pavane pour une infante défunte," "Jeux d'eau," "Sonatine," "Miroirs," "Menuet antique," "Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn," "Gaspard de la nuit," and more.
From the dazzling "Jeux d'eau," whose inventiveness and harmonic ingenuity opened a whole new era in sound, to the beloved "Pavane pour une infante défunte," to the suite "Gaspard de la nuit," music of legendary difficulty that every serious pianist eventually attempts, the piano music of Ravel is among the most recorded and performed in the repertoire. This inexpensive Dover edition makes that music available, at a reasonable price, to pianists who wish to play and study the works of a composer in the vanguard of "the new order of post-Lisztian piano writing."
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) ranks as one of the most original French composers of his time, a consummate craftsman who continually sought perfection of form and style, and whose unique harmonic language was unmistakably his own. Along with Debussy, he stands in the front rank of great modern composers for the piano and his piano music includes a number of masterpieces considered vital to the repertoire of any serious pianist. This handsome, affordable volume reprints a rich selection of his compositions: "Pavane pour une infante défunte," "Jeux d'eau," "Sonatine," "Miroirs," "Menuet antique," "Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn," "Gaspard de la nuit," and more.
From the dazzling "Jeux d'eau," whose inventiveness and harmonic ingenuity opened a whole new era in sound, to the beloved "Pavane pour une infante défunte," to the suite "Gaspard de la nuit," music of legendary difficulty that every serious pianist eventually attempts, the piano music of Ravel is among the most recorded and performed in the repertoire. This inexpensive Dover edition makes that music available, at a reasonable price, to pianists who wish to play and study the works of a composer in the vanguard of "the new order of post-Lisztian piano writing."
About the author
The French composer Maurice Ravel was the leading exemplar of musical impressionism. Ravel entered the Paris Conservatory in 1889, where his teachers included Gabriel Faure. As a composer, Ravel produced highly original, fluid music, much of it within the outlines of musical classicism. He excelled at piano composition and orchestration, and his compositions reveal many of the musical trends active in Paris after the turn of the century. His coloristic effects and occasional use of whole-tone scales and tritones place him with Claude Debussy and the impressionists. Yet the sense of proportion and the austere aspects of some of his compositions also reflect his interest in, and reverence for, classical forms of music. Ravel composed Pavanne for a Deceased Infant (1899), the piano work Jeux d'eau (1902), his song cycle Sheherazade (1903), and his String Quartet (1903) while still a student at the conservatory. In subsequent years, Ravel composed ballets, including Daphne and Chloe (1912); symphonic poems, such as La Valse (1920); two operas, L'Heure espagnole (1911) and L'Enfant et les sortileges (1912); and many pieces for piano, violin, and orchestra. His orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1922) attracted worldwide attention and inclusion in the repertoire of major orchestras. Another staple of major orchestras is Ravel's Bolero (1928). Ravel died in Paris following brain surgery in 1937.
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