During 1914, just as World War I began, Ravel composed his Piano Trio ( for piano, violin, and cello ) with its Basque themes.

In 1923, Tailleferre began to spend a great deal of time with Maurice Ravel at his home in Monfort-L ' Amaury.

Ravel began work on the score in 1909 after a commission from Sergei Diaghilev.

Its popularity waning in the late 18th century, the oboe d ' amore fell into disuse for about 100 years until composers such as Richard Strauss ( Symphonia Domestica, where the instrument represents the child ), Claude Debussy (" Gigues ", where the oboe d ' amore has a long solo passage ), Maurice Ravel, Frederick Delius, and others began using it once again in the early years of the twentieth century.

At age 16, Winger began studying classical music after hearing the works of composers such as Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky in ballet class.

To pay tribute to his fellow artists, Ravel began composing Miroirs in 1904 and finished it the following year.

In 1909 he began regular work as a critic for the Chronique des Arts and in 1910 was one of the founders, with Ravel, of the Société musicale indépendante, with whose activities he was intensely associated.

This music began to emerge in the 1970s both in France amongst the composers of the Groupe de l ' Itinéraire, influenced by work of composers such as Maurice Ravel and Olivier Messiaen, in Germany amongst the members of the Feedback group in Cologne, and in Romania, with composers around Hyperion Ensemble, all of whom created harmonies and orchestrations based on the harmonic and inharmonic partials contained in complex sounds, such as multiple-stop organ tones, bell sounds, and bird song.

Ravel began composing the work in the spring of 1920, but then stopped due to physical exhaustion and poor health.

Stravinsky called the ballet " the single piece of modern music he could listen to with pleasure ," while Ravel called it " a work of genius.

Ravel is perhaps known best for his orchestral work Boléro ( 1928 ), which he considered trivial and once described as " a piece for orchestra without music ".

One of the first works Ravel performed for the Apaches was Jeux d ' eau, his first piano masterpiece and clearly a pathfinding impressionistic work.

They admired each other ’ s music and Ravel even played Debussy ’ s work in public on occasion.

As Ravel said, “ It is probably better after all for us to be on frigid terms for illogical reasons .” Ravel stoically absorbed superficial comparisons with Debussy promulgated by biased critics, including Pierre Lalo, an anti-Ravel critic who stated, “ Where M. Debussy is all sensitivity, M. Ravel is all insensitivity, borrowing without hesitation not only technique but the sensitivity of other people .” During 1913, in a remarkable coincidence, both Ravel and Debussy independently produced and published musical settings for poems by Stéphane Mallarmé, again provoking comparisons of their work and their perceived influence on each other, which continued even after Debussy ’ s death five years later.

With this work, Ravel followed in the tradition of Schumann, Mussorgsky, and Debussy, who also created memorable works of childhood themes.

Subsequently, it became a popular concert work and when the two men met again in 1925, Ravel refused to shake Diaghilev's hand.

Jazz particularly was played in the cafes and became popular, and French composers including Ravel and Darius Milhaud were applying jazz elements to their work.

After returning to France, Ravel composed his most famous and controversial orchestral work Boléro, originally called Fandango.

Ravel insisted “ I don ’ t ask for my music to be interpreted, but only that it should be played .” In the end, the feuding only helped to increase the work ’ s fame.

The work was commissioned by Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm during World War I. Ravel was inspired by the technical challenges of the project.

As Ravel stated, “ In a work of this kind, it is essential to give the impression of a texture no thinner than that of a part written for both hands .” Ravel, not proficient enough to perform the work with only his left hand, demonstrated it with two-hands and Wittgenstein was reportedly underwhelmed by it.

Ravel dedicated the work to his favorite pianist, Marguerite Long, who played it and popularized it across Europe in over twenty cities, and they recorded it together in 1932.

Ravel made a remark at one time suggesting that because he was such a perfectionist composer, so devoted to his work, he could never have a lasting intimate relationship with anyone.

In his review of Ivry's biography for Library Journal Larry Lipkis is persuaded by Ivry's research that, " There seems to be little question that Ravel was an affected, intensely secretive dandy with gay inclinations ," but also expresses the view that Ivry's work is less persuasive in definitively linking Ravel's sexuality to characteristics of his musical oeuvre.

Ravel ’ s body of work includes pieces for piano, chamber works, two piano concerti, ballet music, opera, and song cycles.

Though a competent pianist, Ravel decided early on to have virtuosi, like Ricardo Viñes, premiere and perform his work.

What distinguished these composers from their contemporaries ( such as Maurice Ravel, George Gershwin and Igor Stravinsky ) is that Expressionist composers used atonality self-consciously to free their work from traditional tonality.

Meanwhile, Debussy was having one of his first major successes with in 1902, leading a few years later to ‘ who-was-precursor-to-whom ’ debates between the two composers, in which Maurice Ravel would also get involved.

His music is modern without being modernist, combining a reverence for the great Austro-German lineage of composers with very personal innovations in harmony and orchestration ( showing an awareness of the output of composers such as Debussy and Ravel, whose piano music he was known greatly to admire, along with a knowledge of more recent composers in his own German-speaking realm, such as Schoenberg, Berg, Hindemith, etc .).

Vaughan Williams in particular exhibited music infused with impressionistic gestures -- this was not coincidence, as he was a student of Maurice Ravel.

The piece was later expanded into a full opera, with music by Satie, Poulenc and Ravel.

The ballet's premiere in Paris on 17 May 1921 was a huge success and was greeted with great admiration by an audience that included Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel.

* January 14 – Maurice Ravel's Concerto in G debuts with piano soloist Marguerite Long and Ravel conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra.

It was the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, then living in Buenos Aires, who had advised him to study with Ginastera and delving into scores of Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel, and others, Piazzolla rose early each morning to hear the Teatro Colón orchestra rehearse while continuing a gruelling performing schedule in the tango clubs at night.

Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure, France, near Biarritz, close to the border with Spain, in 1875.

In his younger adulthood, Ravel was usually bearded in the fashion of the day, though later he dispensed with all whiskers.

As the most gifted composer of his class and as a leader, with Debussy, of avant-garde French music, Ravel would continue to have a difficult time with the critics for some time to come.

Around 1900, Ravel joined with a number of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians who were referred to as the Apaches ( hooligans ), a name coined by Viñes to represent his band of " artistic outcasts ".

Ravel further extended his mastery of impressionistic piano music with Gaspard de la nuit, based on a collection by the same name by Aloysius Bertrand, with some influence from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, particularly in the second part.

For future premieres, Ravel replaced Viñes with Marguerite Long.

Also unhappy with the conservative musical establishment which was discouraging performance of new music, around this time Ravel, Fauré, and some of his pupils formed the Société musicale indépendante ( SMI ).

Daphnis et Chloé took three years to complete, with conflicts constantly arising among the principal artists, including Léon Bakst ( sets and costumes ), Michel Fokine ( libretto ), and Ravel ( music ).