Ravel remembered [Hardcover]

Roger Nichols (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1988

Composers Remembered is an absorbing series of personal recollections and reminiscences of major composers from the seventeenth century to the present day. The memoirs of relatives, friends, and fellow musicians are gathered from letters, diaries, and published sources to give a unique overview of each composer's personality, life, and times. Each volume includes a chronology of related historical and cultural events that provocatively places the subject within the spirit of the times.

In Ravel Remembered, the composer of some of the best-loved music in the orchestral repertoire -- including such favorites as La Valse, Daphnis and Chloe, and Bolero -- is examined. The common view of Maurice Ravel as a cold and retiring personality was not supported by his friends, as Roger Nichols demonstrates. His book is a delightful melange of illuminating accounts of the man and his music by those who knew him best, among them Stravinsky, Cocteau, Colette, Poulenc, and Manuel de Falla.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was an intensely private man who revealed his true character only to intimate friends. Nichols, coauthor of The New Grove 20th Century French Masters, here assembles memoirs written by some of them: Stravinsky, Milhaud, Poulenc, Colette, Cocteau, pianist Marguerite Long, violinist Helene Jourdan-Morhange, among others. We learn little of Ravel's methods of composition, about which he was secretive, but we get to know the man a bit. He could be cold and sarcastic to strangers, but he was an affectionate and loyal friend, a humorous and fanciful companion whose charm, absentmindedness and childlike imagination endeared him to those who gained his trust. Much of the magic one feels in his music comes across in these reminiscences. A chronology of the composer's life and works is included, together with lists of contemporaneous events in history and the arts. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Roger Nichols is a writer and broadcaster who specializes in French music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is the author of Debussy Remembered and Mendelssohn Remembered (both forthcoming from Faber). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 203 pages
• Publisher: Norton (1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039302573X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393025736
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,138,758 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful annecdotes and pictures about Ravel by those who knew him, January 16, 2006

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ravel Remembered (Composers Remembered Series) (Paperback)

If you want to know more about Ravel as a person, this collection of anecdotes from those who actually knew him is quite interesting and valuable (and available used at a great price). The book begins with a chronology of events in Ravel's life (and major world events along the way so the reader can coordinate where Ravel's life fits in). There are then fourteen chapters on various topics such as Ravel's youth, on composing, about various works, as a teacher, a performer, as a friend, and his last years. The stories sometimes seem to conflict so you have to take them for what they are worth.

There are also many very interesting photographs of those whose stories are included as well as those of the composer alone and with his contemporaries. Ravel was a very private man and this book can help us get to know him a bit. While his music really stands on its own apart from Ravel's biography (as does the music of all great composers), we always want to know more about the composer, performer, writer, and so forth. It really says more about us than the artist or the nature of art, but it is a constant and continuing desire of those of us who receive the art.

So, this book provides us with what we want to know and we find it fascinating. Enjoy!