Maurice Ravel: Critical Lives by Emily Kilpatrick
Reaktion Books 2025.
My first introduction to Ravel was his (1907) Introduction and Allegro. I was 20 and working in a record shop and the piece enchanted me. I’d never realised that classical music could be so sensual, so seductive and so beautiful. It was music full of the languorous heat of my summer day at work. I’d never heard such beguiling sounds from a harp and quickly wore out my Decca vinyl copy, alongside of a Beatles LP, from repeated listening. The harpist was Osian Ellis playing with the Melos ensemble. Ellis was once the Professor of Harp at the Royal Academy of Music.
Last month I attended a centenary recital of Ravel’s chamber music at the academy that was introduced by Emily Kilpatrick the author of this Reaktion book on Ravel. A performance of the Introduction and Allegro was preceded by her short introduction in which I learnt that the piece was completed in “8 days of relentless work and 3 sleepless nights” and then Ravel went and hurriedly left the manuscript on the counter of a tailor’s shop to which he’d gone to buy some elegant yachting wear. That story sums up Ravel: the sophisticated orchestrator of great rigour; spontaneous actor and sartorial dandy. Both are crucial to an understanding of his music and personality. And this excellent study of Ravel explores that and much more.
After Allegro I discovered the song cycle Scheherazade, Bolero, Alborada del Gracioso, the complete Daphnis and Chloe, La Valse, his piano trio, Gaspard de la Nuit, many songs and much more. To all these works Kilpatrick brings a concise description of their power. Of Gaspard de la Nuit she says “The spine-tingling intersections of technical virtuosity and explosive emotional effect, within rigorously delineated boundaries of expression and form, could not have been better suited to Ravel.” She also admirably sums up Ravel’s contribution to music.
“And indeed Ravel’s oeuvre, spanning four decades of profound cultural and political transformation, was inextricably intertwined with the great artistic touchstones of his age: tradition and innovation in the wake of Wagner and Debussy; historiography and national identity: the dialogues between and across the creative arts.”
We learn a lot from this book: the many occasions when music prizes were not awarded to Ravel because of incomprehension, envy or insider music institution politics; his great devotion to his mother; Ravel’s bravery as an ambulance driver during the first world war; how warm his close friendships were; his attacks on critics as to the integrity of his work; the literary influence of Edgar Allan Poe and A Thousand and One Nights; how hard he crafted his music; Ravel’s strong and playful employment of musical artifice and his sense of humour.
There are many atmospheric and amusing photographs; just enough references and Kilpatrick’s writing is concise and insightful. The Critical Lives edition on Maurice Ravel is a sensitive, well written biography with up to date scholarly research and can be equally enjoyed by a newcomer to Ravel’s marvellous music or an addict (which I definitely am!).
Alan Price© 2025.
Maurice Ravel: Critical Lives by Emily Kilpatrick
Reaktion Books 2025.
My first introduction to Ravel was his (1907) Introduction and Allegro. I was 20 and working in a record shop and the piece enchanted me. I’d never realised that classical music could be so sensual, so seductive and so beautiful. It was music full of the languorous heat of my summer day at work. I’d never heard such beguiling sounds from a harp and quickly wore out my Decca vinyl copy, alongside of a Beatles LP, from repeated listening. The harpist was Osian Ellis playing with the Melos ensemble. Ellis was once the Professor of Harp at the Royal Academy of Music.
Last month I attended a centenary recital of Ravel’s chamber music at the academy that was introduced by Emily Kilpatrick the author of this Reaktion book on Ravel. A performance of the Introduction and Allegro was preceded by her short introduction in which I learnt that the piece was completed in “8 days of relentless work and 3 sleepless nights” and then Ravel went and hurriedly left the manuscript on the counter of a tailor’s shop to which he’d gone to buy some elegant yachting wear. That story sums up Ravel: the sophisticated orchestrator of great rigour; spontaneous actor and sartorial dandy. Both are crucial to an understanding of his music and personality. And this excellent study of Ravel explores that and much more.
After Allegro I discovered the song cycle Scheherazade, Bolero, Alborada del Gracioso, the complete Daphnis and Chloe, La Valse, his piano trio, Gaspard de la Nuit, many songs and much more. To all these works Kilpatrick brings a concise description of their power. Of Gaspard de la Nuit she says “The spine-tingling intersections of technical virtuosity and explosive emotional effect, within rigorously delineated boundaries of expression and form, could not have been better suited to Ravel.” She also admirably sums up Ravel’s contribution to music.
“And indeed Ravel’s oeuvre, spanning four decades of profound cultural and political transformation, was inextricably intertwined with the great artistic touchstones of his age: tradition and innovation in the wake of Wagner and Debussy; historiography and national identity: the dialogues between and across the creative arts.”
We learn a lot from this book: the many occasions when music prizes were not awarded to Ravel because of incomprehension, envy or insider music institution politics; his great devotion to his mother; Ravel’s bravery as an ambulance driver during the first world war; how warm his close friendships were; his attacks on critics as to the integrity of his work; the literary influence of Edgar Allan Poe and A Thousand and One Nights; how hard he crafted his music; Ravel’s strong and playful employment of musical artifice and his sense of humour.
There are many atmospheric and amusing photographs; just enough references and Kilpatrick’s writing is concise and insightful. The Critical Lives edition on Maurice Ravel is a sensitive, well written biography with up to date scholarly research and can be equally enjoyed by a newcomer to Ravel’s marvellous music or an addict (which I definitely am!).
Alan Price© 2025.
By Alan Price • added recently on London Grip, books, music • Tags: Alan Price, books, music