Ravel was born in a village near Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France, of a Swiss father and a Basque mother. His family background was an artistic and cultivated one, and the young Maurice received every encouragement from his father when his talent for music became apparent at an early age. In 1889, at 14, he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he remained until 1905. During this period he composed some of his best known works, including the Pavane for a Dead Princess, the Sonatine for piano, and the String Quartet. All these works, especially the two latter, show the astonishing early perfection of style and craftsmanship that are the hallmarks of Ravel’s entire oeuvre. He is one of the rare composers whose early works seem scarcely less mature than those of his maturity. Indeed, his failure at the Conservatoire, after three attempts, to win the coveted Prix de Rome for composition (the works he submitted were judged too “advanced” by ultra-conservative members of the jury) caused something of a scandal. Indignant protests were published, and liberal-minded musicians and writers, including the musicologist and novelist Romain Rolland, supported Ravel. As a result, the director of the Conservatoire, Théodore Dubois, was forced to resign, and his place was taken by the composer Gabriel Fauré, with whom Ravel had studied composition.
Ravel was in no sense a revolutionary musician. He was for the most part content to work within the established formal and harmonic conventions of his day, still firmly rooted in tonality—i.e., the organization of music around focal tones. Yet, so very personal and individual was his adaptation and manipulation of the traditional musical idiom that it would be true to say he forged for himself a language of his own that bears the stamp of his personality as unmistakably as any work of Bach or Chopin. While his melodies are almost always modal (i.e., based not on the conventional Western diatonic scale but on the old Greek Phrygian and Dorian modes), his harmonies derive their often somewhat acid flavour from his fondness for “added” notes and unresolved appoggiaturas, or notes extraneous to the chord that are allowed to remain harmonically unresolved. He enriched the literature of the piano by a series of masterworks, ranging from the early Jeux d’eau (completed 1901) and the Miroirs of 1905 to the formidable Gaspard de la nuit (1908), Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917), and the two piano concerti (1931). Of his purely orchestral works, the Rapsodie espagnole and Boléro are the best known and reveal his consummate mastery of the art of instrumentation. But perhaps the highlights of his career were his collaboration with the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev, for whose Ballets Russes he composed the masterpiece Daphnis et Chloé, and with the French writer Colette, who was the librettist of his best known opera, L’Enfant et les sortilèges. The latter work gave Ravel an opportunity of doing ingenious and amusing things with the animals and inanimate objects that come to life in this tale of bewitchment and magic in which a naughty child is involved. His only other operatic venture had been his brilliantly satirical L’Heure espagnole (first performed 1911). As a songwriter Ravel achieved great distinction with his imaginative Histoires naturelles, Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, and Chansons madécasses.
Ravel’s life was in the main uneventful. He never married, and, though he enjoyed the society of a few chosen friends, he lived the life of a semi-recluse at his country retreat at Montfort-L’Amaury, in the forest of Rambouillet, near Paris. He served in World War I for a short time as a truck driver at the front, but the strain was too great for his fragile constitution, and he was discharged from the army in 1917.
In 1928 Ravel embarked on a four months’ tour of Canada and the United States and in the same year visited England to receive an honorary degree of doctor of music from Oxford. That year also saw the creation of Boléro in its original form as a ballet, with Ida Rubinstein in the principal role.
The last five years of Ravel’s life were clouded by aphasia, which not only prevented him from writing another note of music but also deprived him of the power of speech and made it impossible for him even to sign his name. Perhaps the real tragedy of his condition was that his musical imagination remained as active as ever. An operation to relieve the obstruction of a blood vessel that supplies the brain was unsuccessful. Ravel was buried in the cemetery of Levallois, a Paris suburb in which he had lived, in the presence of Stravinsky and other distinguished musicians and composers.
For Ravel, music was a kind of ritual, having its own laws, to be conducted behind high walls, sealed off from the outside world, and impenetrable to unauthorized intruders. When his Russian contemporary Igor Stravinsky compared Ravel to “the most perfect of Swiss watchmakers,” he was in fact extolling those qualities of intricacy and precision to which he himself attached so much importance.
Alborada del gracioso
Maurice Ravel Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
La razón por la que hice está canción
Hoy tengo que cantar lo
Este humilde corazón no te olvido
Y aún piensa en ti
Me habla sin cesar
Me cuenta todo aquello que le hizo sentir tu amor
Y te echa de menos
Me habla muy adentro
Siente, como yo lo siento
Quiero ascender al cielo de tus besos
Al Reyno de tu amor
Hoy se que volveremos
Seremos de nuevo tu y yo
Rompí una vez
Tu armazón de hielo
Y mi voz llegó a tu corazón
Le hablo en forma de un beso
Mi alma se quemó
Con tu dulce fuego
Con tu calor
Luego todo terminó
Tan solo sus cenizas me
Recuerdan que soy
Soy solo un soñado
El bufón de todas tus sonrisas
Morador de tu vida
Que por tu amor
Mi alma es lo que doy
En forma de canción
¿No ves que aún estoy solo?
The lyrics of Maurice Ravel's song Alborada del gracioso deal with the longing and unrequited love of the singer towards somebody who he used to be close to. The singer initially explains that he hopes that the person will understand the reason for creating this song, hinting at a possible explanation of his own feelings for her. He then goes on to express the fact that he still thinks of her and speaks to his heart, which is constantly retelling the stories and experiences that they shared. The singer is desperately trying to get the person to listen to his internal dialogue as it is the only way he can express the pain and longing that he feels.
Despite knowing that the person is long gone from his life, the singer still yearns for her attention and tries to convince her that he is still sincere in his affections. The last lines of the song states that the singer is still alone and that he gives his soul in the form of this song, once again hoping to touch the person that he loves so dearly.
Overall, Alborada del gracioso is a poignant portrayal of unrequited love, exploring the desperation of the singer to be heard and recognized by the person that he so obviously loves.
Line by Line Meaning
Quizá esta vez logres comprender
Perhaps, this time you will understand
La razón por la que hice está canción
The reason why I made this song
Hoy tengo que cantar lo
Today, I have to sing it
Este humilde corazón no te olvido
This humble heart hasn't forgotten you
Y aún piensa en ti
And still thinks of you
Me habla sin cesar
It speaks to me endlessly
Me cuenta todo aquello que le hizo sentir tu amor
It tells me everything that made it feel your love
Y te echa de menos
And misses you
Escúchalo
Listen to it
Me habla muy adentro
It speaks deeply within me
Siente, como yo lo siento
Feel, as I feel it
Quiero ascender al cielo de tus besos
I want to ascend to the heaven of your kisses
Al Reyno de tu amor
To the kingdom of your love
Hoy se que volveremos
Today, I know we'll return
Seremos de nuevo tu y yo
We'll be you and I again
Rompí una vez
I once broke
Tu armazón de hielo
Your armor of ice
Y mi voz llegó a tu corazón
And my voice reached your heart
Le hablo en forma de un beso
I speak to it in the form of a kiss
Mi alma se quemó
My soul burned
Con tu dulce fuego
With your sweet fire
Con tu calor
With your warmth
Luego todo terminó
Then everything ended
Tan solo sus cenizas me
Only its ashes
Recuerdan que soy
Remind me that I am
Soy solo un soñado
I am only a dreamer
El bufón de todas tus sonrisas
The jester of all your smiles
Morador de tu vida
Inhabitant of your life
Que por tu amor
That for your love
Mi alma es lo que doy
My soul is what I give
En forma de canción
In the form of a song
¿No ves que aún estoy solo?
Can't you see that I am still alone?
Writer(s): Maurice Ravel
Contributed by Jacob G. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@gayjay6323
I hear people clapping at the end of the first section. It doesn’t bother me, it simply means that fresh ears are hearing a masterpiece! I hope they appreciated this performance!! Great work!
@ArgaJacint
That's a very positive way of looking at this topic, which is sadly quite rare.
@pablomalaga4676
Just plain stupid ignorants. No way around it
@danielmads9160
@Pablo Malaga I guess that makes you the plain stupid arrogant one then. No way around it
@nedcrouch3202
I attended a concert (Dvork New World Symphony,) where after the first mvt everybody clapped. Ok. After the second, everybody clapped. Uh... After the third movement, everybody clapped. Finally, after the fourth and final movement, everybody had gotten the idea--and nobody clapped!. The conductor turned around and said, OK, Now! And the audience went wild.
@paules3437
@Ned Crouch Funny! I think clapping after movements is perfectly sensible. This unnatural silence at the end of a dramatic first movement (say, Brahms Piano Concerto 1) is ridiculous, and wasn't always this way. Even in opera, we applaud at the end of certain arias. Why not do that when movements are finished?
@Hailey_Paige_1937
Ravel never fails to impress me. There hasn’t been a piece of his I don’t like! 😍
@angelaromano7265
I'm completely agree, Hailey! At his works only tears and tears of joy and deep emotion...!
@BenjaminGessel
And he was SO hard on himself, always feeling like he wasn't measuring up to Beethoven, etc. 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔
@gerardbegni2806
Ravel wrote the alborada as one of his "miroirs' for piano, then orchestrated it in a particularly brillant manner. Having orchestrated the central recitative for bassoon with divised strings is especially moving.