Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte (Pavane For A Dead Princess)
Maurice Ravel, in full Joseph-Maurice Ravel (7th March 1875 Ciboure, France… Read Full Bio ↴Maurice Ravel, in full Joseph-Maurice Ravel (7th March 1875 Ciboure, France–28th December, 1937, Paris), was a French composer of Swiss-Basque descent, noted for his musical craftsmanship and perfection of form and style in such works as Boléro (1928), Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899; Pavane for a Dead Princess), Rapsodie espagnole (1907), the ballet Daphnis et Chloé (first performed 1912), and the opera L’Enfant et les sortilèges (1925; The Child and the Enchantments).
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.
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.
Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte
Maurice Ravel Lyrics
We have lyrics for these tracks by Maurice Ravel:
2 mélodies hébraïques: II. L'Enigme éternelle McURICE RcVEL (1875-1937) L'énigme éternelle L'Énigme éter…
Alborada del gracioso Quizá esta vez logres comprender La razón por la que hice…
concerto for piano and orchestra in g major: iii. presto Keep on moving Don′t stop like the hands of time Click cloc…
Deux mélodies hébraïques : II. L'énigme éternelle McURICE RcVEL (1875-1937) L'énigme éternelle L'Énigme éter…
Deux Mélodies Hébraïques: 1. Kaddisch McURICE RcVEL (1875-1937) Kaddisch Der Text von Ravels Ver…
Deux mélodies hébraïques: 2. L'énigme éternelle McURICE RcVEL (1875-1937) L'énigme éternelle L'Énigme éter…
Deux mélodies hébraïques: I. Kaddisch McURICE RcVEL (1875-1937) Kaddisch Der Text von Ravels Ver…
Deux mélodies hébraïques: II. L'énigme éternelle McURICE RcVEL (1875-1937) L'énigme éternelle L'Énigme éter…
Deux Mélodies hébraïques: Kaddisch McURICE RcVEL (1875-1937) Kaddisch Der Text von Ravels Ver…
Kaddisch McURICE RcVEL (1875-1937) Kaddisch Der Text von Ravels Ver…
L'Énigme éternelle McURICE RcVEL (1875-1937) L'énigme éternelle L'Énigme éter…
Melodies hébraïques: I. L'énigme éternelle McURICE RcVEL (1875-1937) L'énigme éternelle L'Énigme éter…
Tzigane I get camping eyes in the final hour Last minute shoppers…
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@tuxguys
Ravel, Faure, and Gershwin (and maybe Kachaturian) affect me in exactly the same way:
Their harmonies lift the hair off of my arms.
One morning, I walked into the bedroom of my own Little Princess, some years ago (she was then about ten), and this was playing softly on her radio, which we had programmed to play the local classical station while she slept (the "Mozart Effect" you know... by the way, it worked, she's brilliant), and I stood there and looked down at her, as I listened to this, and my heart almost broke...
...and then she opened her eyes and said, "Hi, Dad!"
I said, "I thought you were asleep..."
She said, "No, I woke up a little while ago, but I kept my eyes closed because I like this piece and wanted to listen to it."
I said, "Do you know what this piece is called?"
She said, "Pavane For a Dead Princess."
I said, "How do you know THAT?"
She said, "Dad! Radio stations have announcers, right?"
@joelsattler8420
PAVANE FOR A DEAD PRINCESS by Maurice Ravel,
song lyrics by Joel Sattler
This
is a pavane for dead princesses:
for
the memory of a little girl at play
on a bright and sunny day
just yesterday
Somewhere
someone is being born
somewhere
somebody has to die
Why did it have to be you?
Somewhere a sun is shining
Somewhere a star is passing by
Somewhere someone is crying
Somewhere is blue sky
You were
so like an angel
we were
so blessed to have you near
if only for a moment,
our heaven was here
and then
and then you were gone
********************
This
is just a song of remembrances
for
the loss of innocence
of the broken promises
and the end of light
when comes the night
The world
was full of joy and laughter
and your love
was in the air
Why did it have to end?
Remember springtime
when the earth was new
and when you were so full of life
and winter far
away
Remember summer
and the smell of bread
when you wore a crown on your head
of poppies red
you said
we all
should come
with you too
But with the autumn
everything was changed
you were up to us to protect
but none expect
the rain
Then there was winter
and the falling snow
when the trees were all in disguise
and wonder filled your eyes
the world
covered up with ice
***************
This
was a pavane for dead princesses
just a melody meant to bring back to our lives
all the feelings deep inside
we had for you
Somewhere
someone is being born
somewhere
somebody has to die
Why did it have to be you?
===============================
@gladtobeopenminded
I played this for my "Princess" as she passed away from Cancer. It was her favorite piece back in college as a music major. Speaking to her softly and playing this, she passed peacefully. I miss her every day, and it's been over 2 years since she passed. I bless this piece and performance for helping her slip gently into another realm - out of pain, out of worry.
@gmarksmith
You’ve brought tears to my eyes. What a lovely way to honor your princess. I’m so moved. I wish I had played this for my mother who passed from Parkinson’s three years ago. I’m now a wreck listening to this and grieving for you. God bless you, Peter. You are very special.
@natalieabreu7758
God Bless you.What a husband….
@ItsCloroxTime
Wow, Peter. Your wife went out of this world to this song, and my son came into this world to this song. There is a lot of beauty in that. Sending love <3
@chefdusax
I embrace you. it is your noble heart and infinite love to remember "princesses" with the magic of music! thank you for your thoughts, i was moved! and infinite Thanks to Ravel! :)
@darkphoenix9574
Sorry for your loss, i really want to give you a hug right now
@SkyeTsow
This piece was inspiration for a popular 1930s song "The Lamp Is Low," which then went on to be sampled and used for Aruarian Dance. I always find how music inspires others and becomes adapted while retaining some of its key elements to be fascinating.
@kenshir00
The three generations of masterpieces
@hatred520
I HAVE NO ENEMIES
@sonictheaccursed6105
Don't forget that Laurindo Almeida did it before Nujabes. In fact, the sample Nujabes used in Aruarian Dance came from Laurindo's version