Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Introduction
Joseph Maurice Ravel was born March, 1875 and died December, 1937. During his musical career, Ravel was a French composer, conductor and pianist. For a decade between the 20's and 30's Ravel was titled as France's greatest living composer, both nationally and internationally. Maurice Ravel grew up in a music loving family that encourage his music aspirations. Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire. Ravel disagreed with the conservative style of teaching and left to find his own way and developed his own style of accuracy along with elements of baroque, neoclassicism and later works of jazz. Ravel's best known work, Bolero (1928), he is known for experimenting with musical forms. Ravel was a slow and patient worker than compared to his colleagues, when it came composing pieces and to some it could've been irritating. Maurice Ravel's finished pieces were for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas, orchestral music. "Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public." (wiki)

Works
da Sonatina per pianoforte: 3 Anime

Structure[edit]

The piece is in three movements:

I. Modéré ("moderate")

II. Mouvement de menuet ("Minuet movement")

III. Animé ("animated")

The leaping fifth melody of the first movement reappears in variations against different textures in the second and third movements. [6]

The first movement marked as Modéré-doux et espressif stays strictly in sonata form. The first theme repeats throughout in the keys of F sharp minor, D major and arrives at B minor for the finale. The final movement Animé nears virtuosic compositional style [4] (SonatineRavelwiki)

Comparison
da Sonatina per pianoforte: 3 Anime compared to other Alba composers like Toru Takemitsu- Romance is vastly different in tempo, style and feeling. Ravel's composition keeps the listener involved with high energy and a twinkling pattern in repetitive notes.

Observation
The beginning is beautiful; like running through a field of flowers. The energy is high but changes into a relaxing tempo in some parts. All of a sudden a feeling of sad and building up to a high strain of chaotic notes. This piece has a sense of happy beautiful feeling to a anxious hard to listen feeling.

Work Cited
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ravelhttps://youtu.be/jAerHOMBcB0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonatine_(Ravel)#cite_note-allmusic1-4

https://youtu.be/jAerHOMBcB0