166-543: Jacques Loussier (26 October 1934 – 5 March 2019) was a French pianist and composer. He arranged jazz interpretations of many of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach , such as the Goldberg Variations . The Jacques Loussier Trio , founded in 1959, played more than 3,000 concerts and sold more than 7 million recordings—mostly in the Bach series. Loussier composed film scores and a number of classical pieces, including
332-573: A Mass , a ballet, and violin concertos. His style is described as third stream , a synthesis of jazz and classical music, with an emphasis on improvisation . Loussier was born on 26 October 1934 in Angers , France. He started piano lessons there at age ten. When he was eleven, he heard a piece from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach . In a 2003 interview, he said, "I was studying this piece and I just fell in love with it. Then I found I loved to play
498-633: A bedroom farce – would be badly received by the ultra-respectable mothers and daughters who were an important part of the Opéra-Comique's audience. The piece was only modestly successful at its first production, and it was not until the 1920s that it became popular. In 1912 Ravel had three ballets premiered. The first, to the orchestrated and expanded version of Ma mère l'Oye , opened at the Théâtre des Arts in January. The reviews were excellent:
664-408: A dandy and was meticulous about his appearance and demeanour. Orenstein comments that, short in stature, light in frame and bony in features, Ravel had the "appearance of a well-dressed jockey", whose large head seemed suitably matched to his formidable intellect. During the late 1890s and into the early years of the next century, Ravel was bearded in the fashion of the day; from his mid-thirties he
830-441: A "horrible despair", compounding the distress he felt at the suffering endured by the people of his country during the war. He composed few works in the war years. The Piano Trio was almost complete when the conflict began, and the most substantial of his wartime works is Le tombeau de Couperin , composed between 1914 and 1917. The suite celebrates the tradition of François Couperin , the 18th-century French composer; each movement
996-535: A ban on the performance of contemporary German music. Ravel declined to join, telling the committee of the league in 1916, "It would be dangerous for French composers to ignore systematically the productions of their foreign colleagues, and thus form themselves into a sort of national coterie: our musical art, which is so rich at the present time, would soon degenerate, becoming isolated in banal formulas." The league responded by banning Ravel's music from its concerts. Ravel's mother died in January 1917, and he fell into
1162-447: A base for jazz improvisation and made many live appearances, tours, and concerts, as well as a number of recordings. They began with Decca Records but changed to Philips / Phonogram in 1973. They sold over six million albums in 15 years. Their best-known recording is " Air on the G String ", which was used to advertise Hamlet cigars in the UK for over 30 years. In the mid-1970s, the trio
1328-440: A broader range of European culture. In addition to singing in the choir, he played the school's three-manual organ and harpsichords . He also came into contact with sons of aristocrats from northern Germany who had been sent to the nearby Ritter-Academie to prepare for careers in other disciplines. In January 1703, shortly after graduating from St. Michael's and being turned down for the post of organist at Sangerhausen , Bach
1494-486: A cantata, BWV 191 from his 1733 Kyrie-Gloria Mass for the Dresden court in the mid-1740s, Bach expanded that setting into his Mass in B minor in the last years of his life. The complete mass was not performed during his lifetime. It is considered among the greatest choral works in history. In January 1749, Bach's daughter Elisabeth Juliane Friederica married his pupil Johann Christoph Altnickol . Bach's health
1660-704: A cappella choir, setting his own texts in the tradition of French 16th-century chansons. He dedicated the three songs to people who might help him to enlist. After several unsuccessful attempts to enlist, Ravel finally joined the Thirteenth Artillery Regiment as a lorry driver in March 1915, when he was forty. Stravinsky expressed admiration for his friend's courage: "at his age and with his name he could have had an easier place, or done nothing". Some of Ravel's duties put him in mortal danger, driving munitions at night under heavy German bombardment. At
1826-560: A charlatan and believed to have blinded hundreds of people. Bach died on 28 July 1750 from complications due to the unsuccessful treatment. An inventory drawn up a few months after Bach's death shows that his estate included five harpsichords , two lute-harpsichords , three violins , three violas , two cellos , a viola da gamba , a lute , a spinet , and 52 "sacred books", including works by Martin Luther and Josephus . C.P.E. Bach saw to it that The Art of Fugue , though unfinished,
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#17327929440181992-408: A chorale by Schumann , variations on a theme by Grieg and a single movement of a piano sonata. They survive only in fragmentary form. In 1888 Ravel met the young pianist Ricardo Viñes , who became not only a lifelong friend, but also one of the foremost interpreters of his works, and an important link between Ravel and Spanish music. The two shared an appreciation of Wagner , Russian music, and
2158-679: A church cantata monthly in the castle church. The first three cantatas in the new series Bach composed in Weimar were Himmelskönig, sei willkommen , BWV 182 , for Palm Sunday , which coincided with the Annunciation that year; Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen , BWV 12 , for Jubilate Sunday ; and Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172 for Pentecost . Bach's first Christmas cantata, Christen, ätzet diesen Tag , BWV 63 , premiered in 1714 or 1715. In 1717, Bach fell out of favour in Weimar and, according to
2324-489: A close interest in the controversy was Alfred Edwards , owner and editor of Le Matin , for which Lalo wrote. Edwards was married to Ravel's friend Misia; the couple took Ravel on a seven-week Rhine cruise on their yacht in June and July 1905, the first time he had travelled abroad. By the latter part of the 1900s Ravel had established a pattern of writing works for piano and subsequently arranging them for full orchestra. He
2490-525: A composer. As Ravel's course progressed, Fauré reported "a distinct gain in maturity ... engaging wealth of imagination". Ravel's standing at the Conservatoire was nevertheless undermined by the hostility of the Director, Théodore Dubois , who deplored the young man's musically and politically progressive outlook. Consequently, according to a fellow student, Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi , he
2656-495: A composition. He chose his Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her" , and a portrait painted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann that featured Bach's Canon triplex á 6 Voc . In May 1747, Bach visited the court of King Frederick II of Prussia in Potsdam . The king played a theme for Bach and challenged him to improvise a fugue based on it. Bach obliged, playing a three-part fugue on one of Frederick's fortepianos ,
2822-457: A festive cantata for the inauguration of the new council , which was published at the council's expense. Bach left Mühlhausen in 1708, returning to Weimar this time as organist and from 1714 Konzertmeister (director of music) at the ducal court, where he could work with a large, well-funded contingent of professional musicians. Bach and his wife moved into a house near the ducal palace. Later that year, their first child, Catharina Dorothea,
2988-450: A friend of Emmanuel Chabrier ; five years later, in 1887, he began studying harmony , counterpoint and composition with Charles-René, a pupil of Léo Delibes . Without being anything of a child prodigy, he was a highly musical boy. Charles-René found that Ravel's conception of music was natural to him "and not, as in the case of so many others, the result of effort". Ravel's earliest known compositions date from this period: variations on
3154-433: A label he intensely disliked. Many music lovers began to apply the same term to Ravel, and the works of the two composers were frequently taken as part of a single genre. Ravel thought that Debussy was indeed an Impressionist but that he himself was not. Orenstein comments that Debussy was more spontaneous and casual in his composing while Ravel was more attentive to form and craftsmanship. Ravel wrote that Debussy's "genius
3320-608: A large extent he defined it. Fugues are as characteristic of Bach's style as, for instance, sonata form is of the composers of the Classical period . These strictly contrapuntal compositions, and most of Bach's music in general, are characterised by distinct melodic lines for each voice, where the chords formed by the notes sounding at a given point follow the rules of four-part harmony. Johann Nikolaus Forkel , Bach's first biographer, gives this description of this feature of Bach's music, which sets it apart from most other music: If
3486-533: A libretto by Colette (1926), Tzigane (1924) and the Violin Sonata No.2 (1927). Finding city life fatiguing, Ravel moved to the countryside. In May 1921 he took up residence at Le Belvédère, a small house on the fringe of Montfort-l'Amaury , 50 kilometres (31 mi) west of Paris, in the Seine-et-Oise département . Looked after by a devoted housekeeper, Mme Revelot, he lived there for
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#17327929440183652-525: A modest regular income for the deserted Lilly Debussy, a fact that Nichols suggests may have rankled with her husband. During the first years of the new century Ravel made five attempts to win France's most prestigious prize for young composers, the Prix de Rome , past winners of which included Berlioz , Gounod , Bizet , Massenet and Debussy. In 1900 Ravel was eliminated in the first round; in 1901 he won
3818-556: A much better and newer (1716) organ than the St. Thomas Church or the St. Nicholas Church. Bach was not required to play any organ in his official duties, but it is believed he liked to play on the St. Paul's Church organ for his own pleasure. Bach broadened his composing and performing beyond the liturgy by taking over, in March 1729, the directorship of the Collegium Musicum , a secular performance ensemble Telemann started. This
3984-599: A music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire ; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the conservatoire, Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism , baroque , neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz . He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes
4150-501: A musician, Leopold appreciated Bach's talents, paid him well, and gave him considerable latitude in composing and performing. Leopold was a Calvinist and did not use elaborate music in his worship; accordingly, most of Bach's work from this period is secular, including the orchestral suites , cello suites , sonatas and partitas for solo violin , and the Brandenburg Concertos . Bach also composed secular cantatas for
4316-479: A new type of instrument at the time. Upon his return to Leipzig he composed a set of fugues and canons and a trio sonata based on the Thema Regium ("king's theme"). Within a few weeks this music was published as The Musical Offering and dedicated to Frederick. The Schübler Chorales , a set of six chorale preludes transcribed from cantata movements Bach had written two decades earlier, were published within
4482-586: A new, modernist organisation, the Société Musicale Indépendente, with Fauré as its president. The new society's inaugural concert took place on 20 April 1910; the seven items on the programme included premieres of Fauré's song cycle La chanson d'Ève , Debussy's piano suite D'un cahier d'esquisses , Zoltán Kodály 's Six pièces pour piano and the original piano duet version of Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye . The performers included Fauré, Florent Schmitt , Ernest Bloch , Pierre Monteux and, in
4648-550: A part written for both hands." Ravel, not proficient enough to perform the work with only his left hand, demonstrated it with both hands. Wittgenstein was initially disappointed by the piece, but after long study he became fascinated by it and ranked it as a great work. In January 1932 he premiered it in Vienna to instant acclaim, and performed it in Paris with Ravel conducting the following year. The critic Henry Prunières wrote, "From
4814-456: A performing version of Mussorgsky 's unfinished opera Khovanshchina , and his own works were the Trois poèmes de Mallarmé for soprano and chamber ensemble, and two short piano pieces, À la manière de Borodine and À la manière de Chabrier . In 1913, together with Debussy, Ravel was among the musicians present at the dress rehearsal of The Rite of Spring . Stravinsky later said that Ravel
4980-654: A pianist or conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works; others were made under his supervision. Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure , France, near Biarritz , 18 kilometres (11 mi) from the Spanish border. His father, Pierre-Joseph Ravel , was an educated and successful engineer, inventor and manufacturer, born in Versoix near the Franco-Swiss border. His mother, Marie, née Delouart,
5146-414: A piano score and later an orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in performance. Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public. From the 1920s, despite limited technique as
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5312-653: A prelude and fugue in every major and minor key, displaying a dizzying variety of structural, contrapuntal and fugal techniques. Four-part harmony predates Bach, but he lived during a time when modal music in Western tradition was largely supplanted by the tonal system . In this system a piece of music progresses from one chord to the next according to certain rules, with each chord characterised by four notes. The principles of four-part harmony are found not only in Bach's four-part choral music; he also prescribes it for instance in figured bass accompaniment. The new system
5478-699: A prolonged absence from Arnstadt: after obtaining leave for four weeks, he was absent for around four months in 1705–1706 to take lessons from the organist and composer Johann Adam Reincken and to hear him and Dieterich Buxtehude play in the northern city of Lübeck . The visit to Buxtehude and Reincken involved a 450-kilometre (280 mi) journey each way, reportedly on foot. Buxtehude probably introduced Bach to his friend Reincken so that he could learn from his compositional technique (especially his mastery of fugue ), his organ playing and his skills with improvisation. Bach knew Reincken's music very well; he copied Reincken's monumental An Wasserflüssen Babylon when he
5644-523: A soloist) with the orchestra in instrumental cantata movements, a decade before Handel published his first organ concertos. Apart from the 5th Brandenburg Concerto and the Triple Concerto , which already had harpsichord soloists in the 1720s, Bach wrote and arranged his harpsichord concertos in the 1730s, and in his sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord neither instrument plays a continuo part: they are treated as equal soloists, far beyond
5810-495: A study for the British Medical Journal in 1988 the neurologist R. A. Henson concludes that it may have exacerbated an existing cerebral condition. As early as 1927 close friends had been concerned at Ravel's growing absent-mindedness, and within a year of the accident he started to experience symptoms suggesting aphasia . Before the accident he had begun work on music for a film, Don Quixote (1933), but he
5976-548: A sustained period of composing keyboard and orchestral works. He attained the proficiency and confidence to extend the prevailing structures and include influences from abroad. He learned to write dramatic openings and employ the dynamic rhythms and harmonic schemes found in the music of Italians such as Vivaldi , Corelli , and Torelli . Bach absorbed these stylistic aspects to a certain extent by transcribing Vivaldi's string and wind concertos for harpsichord and organ; many of these transcribed works are still regularly performed. Bach
6142-573: A translation of the court secretary's report, was jailed for almost a month before being unfavorably dismissed: "On November 6, [1717,] the quondam [former] concertmaster and organist Bach was confined to the County Judge's place of detention for too stubbornly forcing the issue of his dismissal and finally on December 2 was freed from arrest with notice of his unfavorable discharge." Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen , hired Bach to serve as his Kapellmeister (director of music) in 1717. Himself
6308-417: A trumpet concerto, two violin concertos, and music for a ballet, among other pieces. His Mass , Lumières: Messe Baroque du 21e Siècle ( Lights: A Baroque Mass of the 21st Century ), has been compared to Leonard Bernstein 's Mass . Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [ O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of
6474-545: A visit to Poe's house in New York, and excursions to Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon . Ravel was unmoved by his new international celebrity. He commented that the critics' recent enthusiasm was of no more importance than their earlier judgment, when they called him "the most perfect example of insensitivity and lack of emotion". The last composition Ravel completed in the 1920s, Boléro , became his most famous. He
6640-467: A year, it included some of his finest works. In 1920 he completed La valse , in response to a commission from Diaghilev. He had worked on it intermittently for some years, planning a concert piece, "a sort of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, mingled with, in my mind, the impression of a fantastic, fatal whirling". It was rejected by Diaghilev, who said, "It's a masterpiece, but it's not a ballet. It's
6806-418: A year. Around the same time, the set of five canonic variations Bach had submitted when entering Mizler's society in 1747 were also printed. Two large-scale compositions occupied a central place in Bach's last years. Beginning around 1742, he wrote and revised the various canons and fugues of The Art of Fugue , which he continued to prepare for publication until shortly before his death. After extracting
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6972-461: Is a very different thing when two melodies are so interwoven that they converse together like two persons upon a footing of pleasant equality. In the first case, the accompaniment is subordinate and serves merely to support the first or principal part. In the second case, the two parts are not similarly related. New melodic combinations spring from their interweaving, out of which new forms of musical expression emerge. Suppose more parts are interwoven in
7138-402: Is dedicated to a friend of Ravel's who died in the war. After the war, those close to Ravel recognised that he had lost much of his physical and mental stamina. As the musicologist Stephen Zank puts it, "Ravel's emotional equilibrium, so hard won in the previous decade, had been seriously compromised." His output, never large, became smaller. Nonetheless, after the death of Debussy in 1918, he
7304-595: Is harmonically more innovative than his peers', employing surprisingly dissonant chords and progressions, often extensively exploring harmonic possibilities within one piece. Bach's hundreds of sacred works are usually seen as manifesting not just his craft but also a deep faith in God. He had taught Luther's Small Catechism as the Thomaskantor in Leipzig, and some of his pieces represent it. The Lutheran chorale
7470-497: Is heard in his later music. Arnold Schönberg 's abandonment of conventional tonality also had echoes in some of Ravel's music such as the Chansons madécasses (1926), which Ravel doubted he could have written without the example of Pierrot Lunaire . His other major works from the 1920s include the orchestral arrangement of Mussorgsky's piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition (1922), the opera L'enfant et les sortilèges to
7636-633: Is practically no invention except the plan and the manner of the execution. The themes are altogether impersonal." He was astonished, and not wholly pleased, that it became a mass success. When one elderly member of the audience at the Opéra shouted "Rubbish!" at the premiere, he remarked, "That old lady got the message!" The work was popularised by the conductor Arturo Toscanini , and has been recorded several hundred times. Ravel commented to Arthur Honegger , one of Les Six, "I've written only one masterpiece – Boléro . Unfortunately there's no music in it." At
7802-459: Is still played. Although Bach wrote no operas, he was not averse to the genre or its ornamented vocal style. In church music, Italian composers had imitated the operatic vocal style in genres such as the Neapolitan mass . In Protestant surroundings, there was more reluctance to adopt such a style for liturgical music. Kuhnau had notoriously shunned opera and Italian virtuoso vocal music. Bach
7968-518: Is the interweaving of several melodies, which emerge now in the upper, now in the middle, and now in the lower parts. From 1720, when he was thirty-five until he died in 1750, Bach's harmony consists of this melodic interweaving of independent melodies, so perfect in their union that each part seems to constitute the true melody. Herein, Bach excels all the composers in the world. At least, I have found no one to equal him in music known to me. Even in his four-part writing, we can, not infrequently, leave out
8134-465: Is unknown. Experts have ruled out the possibility of a tumour , and have variously suggested frontotemporal dementia , Alzheimer's disease and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease . Though no longer able to write music or perform, Ravel remained physically and socially active until his last months. Henson notes that Ravel preserved most or all his auditory imagery and could still hear music in his head. In 1937 Ravel began to suffer pain from his condition, and
8300-547: The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, a numbered catalogue of his works) and new critical editions of his compositions. His music was further popularised through a multitude of arrangements , including the Air on the G String and " Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring ", and of recordings, such as three different box sets with complete performances of his oeuvre marking the 250th anniversary of his death. Johann Sebastian Bach
8466-579: The Little Organ Book , containing traditional Lutheran chorale tunes set in complex textures. In 1713, Bach was offered a post in Halle when he advised the authorities during a renovation by Christoph Cuntzius of the main organ in the west gallery of the Market Church of Our Dear Lady . In the spring of 1714, Bach was promoted to Konzertmeister , an honour that entailed performing
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#17327929440188632-604: The Mercure de France called the score "absolutely ravishing, a masterwork in miniature". The music rapidly entered the concert repertoire; it was played at the Queen's Hall , London, within weeks of the Paris premiere, and was repeated at the Proms later in the same year. The Times praised "the enchantment of the work ... the effect of mirage, by which something quite real seems to float on nothing". New York audiences heard
8798-567: The organ , and an older second cousin, Johann Ludwig Bach , was a well-known composer and violinist. Bach's mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later. The 10-year-old Bach moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach , the organist at St. Michael's Church in Ohrdruf , Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg . There he studied, performed, and copied music, including his brother's, despite being forbidden to do so because scores were so valuable and private and blank ledger paper
8964-540: The Brandenburg Concertos and orchestral suites, many of Bach's newly composed or reworked pieces were performed for these venues, including parts of his Clavier-Übung ( Keyboard Practice ), his violin and keyboard concertos , and the Coffee Cantata . In 1733, Bach composed a Kyrie–Gloria Mass in B minor that he later incorporated in his Mass in B minor. He presented the manuscript to
9130-523: The Collegium Musicum gave two-hour performances, in winter at the Café Zimmermann , a coffeehouse on Catherine Street off the main market square, and in summer in the proprietor's outdoor coffee garden just outside the town walls, near the East Gate. The concerts, all free of charge, ended with Gottfried Zimmermann's death in 1741. Apart from showcasing his earlier orchestral repertoire, such as
9296-486: The Opéra-Comique . It divided musical opinion. Dubois unavailingly forbade Conservatoire students to attend, and the conductor's friend and former teacher Camille Saint-Saëns was prominent among those who detested the piece. The Apaches were loud in their support. The first run of the opera consisted of fourteen performances: Ravel attended all of them. Debussy was widely held to be an Impressionist composer –
9462-599: The Passion with Bible text reflected in recitatives, arias, choruses, and chorales, but in crafting this work, Bach created an overall experience that has been found over the intervening centuries to be both musically thrilling and spiritually profound. Bach published or carefully compiled in manuscript many collections of pieces that explored the range of artistic and technical possibilities inherent in almost every genre of his time except opera . For example, The Well-Tempered Clavier comprises two books, each of which presents
9628-583: The St Matthew and St John Passions and the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes , their final revisions. He also programmed and adapted music by composers of a younger generation, including Pergolesi ( BWV 1083 ), and his own students, such as Goldberg ( BNB I/G/2 ). In 1746 Bach was preparing to enter Lorenz Christoph Mizler 's Society of Musical Sciences [ de ] . To be admitted, he had to submit
9794-709: The Toccata and Fugue in D minor ; and choral works such as the St ;Matthew Passion and the Mass in B ;minor . Since the 19th century Bach Revival , he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician, Johann Ambrosius , in Eisenach . After being orphaned at
9960-436: The liturgical year . Bach usually led performances of his cantatas , most composed within three years of his relocation to Leipzig. He assumed the office of Thomaskantor on 30 May 1723, presenting the first new cantata, Die Elenden sollen essen , BWV 75 , in the St. Nicholas Church on the first Sunday after Trinity . Bach collected his cantatas in annual cycles. Five are mentioned in obituaries, and three are extant. Of
10126-461: The 1890s. Ravel was expelled in 1895, having won no more prizes. His earliest works to survive in full are from these student days: Sérénade grotesque , for piano, and "Ballade de la Reine morte d'aimer", a mélodie setting a poem by Roland de Marès (both 1893). Ravel was never so assiduous a student of the piano as his colleagues such as Viñes and Cortot were. It was plain that as a pianist he would never match them, and his overriding ambition
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#173279294401810292-477: The 18th century, Bach was primarily valued as an organist , while his keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier , was appreciated for its didactic qualities. The 19th century saw the publication of some significant Bach biographies , and by the end of that century, all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals (and later also websites) exclusively devoted to him and other publications such as
10458-407: The 1900s, for musical and possibly personal reasons. Their admirers began to form factions, with adherents of one composer denigrating the other. Disputes arose about the chronology of the composers' works and who influenced whom. Prominent in the anti-Ravel camp was Lalo, who wrote, "Where M. Debussy is all sensitivity, M. Ravel is all insensitivity, borrowing without hesitation not only technique but
10624-518: The 1905 piano suite Miroirs ), the Habanera section of Rapsodie espagnole (1907–08), Ma mère l'Oye (1908–10, orchestrated 1911), Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911, orchestrated 1912), Alborada del gracioso (from Miroirs , orchestrated 1918) and Le tombeau de Couperin (1914–17, orchestrated 1919). Ravel was not by inclination a teacher, but he gave lessons to a few young musicians he felt could benefit from them. Manuel Rosenthal
10790-453: The 1920s, Ravel, after serious consideration, refused, on the grounds that they "would probably cause him to write bad Ravel and lose his great gift of melody and spontaneity". The best-known composer who studied with Ravel was probably Ralph Vaughan Williams , who was his pupil for three months in 1907–08. Vaughan Williams recalled that Ravel helped him escape from "the heavy contrapuntal Teutonic manner ... Complexe mais pas compliqué
10956-781: The Bach family in Leipzig, but the visit did not take place. On 7 July 1720, while Bach was away in Carlsbad with Leopold, his wife, Maria Barbara Bach , suddenly died. The next year, he met Anna Magdalena Wilcke , a young, gifted soprano 16 years his junior, who performed at the court in Köthen; they married on 3 December 1721. Together they had 13 children, six of whom survived into adulthood: Gottfried Heinrich ; Elisabeth Juliane Friederica (1726–1781); Johann Christoph Friedrich and Johann Christian , who both, especially Johann Christian, became significant musicians; Johanna Carolina (1737–1781); and Regina Susanna (1742–1809). In 1723, Bach
11122-464: The Debussy work, Ravel. Kelly considers it a sign of Ravel's new influence that the society featured Satie's music in a concert in January 1911. The first of Ravel's two operas, the one-act comedy L'heure espagnole was premiered in 1911. The work had been completed in 1907, but the manager of the Opéra-Comique, Albert Carré , repeatedly deferred its presentation. He was concerned that its plot –
11288-538: The Elector in a successful bid to persuade the prince to give him the title of Court Composer. He later extended this work into a full mass by adding a Credo , Sanctus , and Agnus Dei , the music for which was partly based on his own cantatas and partly original. Bach's appointment as Court Composer was an element of his long-term struggle to achieve greater bargaining power with the Leipzig council. Between 1737 and 1739, Bach's former pupil Carl Gotthelf Gerlach held
11454-540: The Italian Girolamo Frescobaldi . He learned theology , Latin and Greek at the local gymnasium . By 3 April 1700, Bach and his school friend Georg Erdmann—who was two years older than Bach—studied at St. Michael 's School in Lüneburg , some two weeks' travel north of Ohrdruf. Their journey was probably undertaken mostly on foot. His two years there were critical in exposing Bach to
11620-509: The Leipzig offer to negotiate better terms of employment. Bach was required to instruct the Thomasschule students in singing and provide church music for the main churches in Leipzig. He was also assigned to teach Latin but was allowed to employ four "prefects" (deputies) to do this instead. The prefects also aided with musical instruction. A cantata was required for the church services on Sundays and additional church holidays during
11786-569: The Paris Opéra. In the post-war era there was a reaction against the large-scale music of composers such as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss . Stravinsky, whose Rite of Spring was written for a huge orchestra, began to work on a much smaller scale. His 1923 ballet score Les noces is composed for voices and twenty-one instruments. Ravel did not like the work (his opinion caused a cooling in Stravinsky's friendship with him) but he
11952-433: The Société Musicale Indépendente, he was able to encourage them and composers from other countries. The Société presented concerts of recent works by American composers including Aaron Copland , Virgil Thomson and George Antheil and by Vaughan Williams and his English colleagues Arnold Bax and Cyril Scott . Orenstein and Zank both comment that, although Ravel's post-war output was small, averaging only one composition
12118-525: The St. Paul's Church, the church of Leipzig University . But when Bach was installed as cantor in 1723, he was put in charge only of music for festal (church holiday) services at St. Paul's Church; his petition to also provide music for regular Sunday services there (for a corresponding salary increase) went all the way to the Elector but was denied. In 1725, Bach "lost interest" in working even for festal services at St. Paul's Church and decided to appear there only on "special occasions". The St. Paul's Church had
12284-532: The age of 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph , after which he continued his musical education in Lüneburg . In 1703 he returned to Thuringia , working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for longer periods, at courts in Weimar , where he expanded his organ repertory, and Köthen , where he was mostly engaged with chamber music . In 1723, he
12450-584: The beat for the track "Kill You" was stolen from his composition Pulsion . He demanded that all sales of the album be halted and any remaining copies destroyed. The case was settled out of court. Loussier suffered a stroke during a performance at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr on 14 July 2011 and retired from the stage. He died on 5 March 2019 at the age of 84. Loussier composed the music for over 100 films, made for cinema and television series, beginning with The Happy Sixties in 1963. These included
12616-665: The beginning of the 1930s Ravel was working on two piano concertos. He completed the Piano Concerto in D major for the Left Hand first. It was commissioned by the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein , who had lost his right arm during the First World War. Ravel was stimulated by the technical challenges of the project: "In a work of this kind, it is essential to give the impression of a texture no thinner than that of
12782-545: The canons BWV 1072–1078 are in that category, as is the bulk of the Musical Offering and the Art of Fugue . Another characteristic of Bach's style is his extensive use of counterpoint , as opposed to the homophony used in his four-part chorale settings, for example. Bach's canons, and especially his fugues, are the most characteristic of this style, which he did not invent but contributed to so fundamentally that to
12948-410: The classes of Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot , for piano, and Émile Pessard , for harmony. He made solid, unspectacular progress, with particular encouragement from Bériot but, in the words of the musicologist Barbara L. Kelly , he "was only teachable on his own terms". His later teacher Gabriel Fauré understood this, but it was not generally acceptable to the conservative faculty of the Conservatoire of
13114-515: The collaborators, and the premiere was under-rehearsed because of the late completion of the work. It had an unenthusiastic reception and was quickly withdrawn, although it was revived successfully a year later in Monte Carlo and London. The effort to complete the ballet took its toll on Ravel's health; neurasthenia obliged him to rest for several months after the premiere. Ravel composed little during 1913. He collaborated with Stravinsky on
13280-522: The conservatory, he played a prelude by Bach, and when his memory failed, he improvised . He later said that he only followed a tradition, because musicians of the 18th century—including Bach—were great improvisers. Loussier played jazz in Paris bars to finance his studies. Fusing Bach and jazz was unique at the time. After six years of study, he travelled to the Middle East and Latin America, where he
13446-419: The course of a piece, is another style characteristic where Bach goes beyond the norm in his time. Baroque instruments vastly limited modulation possibilities: keyboard instruments, before a workable system of temperament , limited the keys that could be modulated to, and wind instruments, especially brass instruments such as trumpets and horns , about a century before they were fitted with valves, were tied to
13612-425: The court, such as Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht , BWV 134a . Despite being born in the same year and only about 130 kilometres (80 mi) apart, Bach and Handel never met. In 1719, Bach made the 35-kilometre (22 mi) journey from Köthen to Halle with the intention to meet Handel, but Handel had left town. In 1730, Bach's oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, travelled to Halle to invite Handel to visit
13778-542: The courts of Köthen and Weissenfels, as well as that of the Elector Frederick Augustus (who was also King of Poland ) in Dresden . Bach frequently disagreed with his employer, Leipzig's city council, which he regarded as "penny-pinching". Johann Kuhnau had been Thomaskantor in Leipzig from 1701 until his death on 5 June 1722. Bach had visited Leipzig during Kuhnau's tenure: in 1714, he attended
13944-416: The critics were complimentary. At an all-Ravel programme conducted by Serge Koussevitzky in New York, the entire audience stood up and applauded as the composer took his seat. Ravel was touched by this spontaneous gesture and observed, "You know, this doesn't happen to me in Paris." Orenstein, commenting that this tour marked the zenith of Ravel's international reputation, lists its non-musical highlights as
14110-849: The directorship of the Collegium Musicum. In 1735, Bach started preparing his first organ music publication, which was printed as the third Clavier-Übung in 1739. From around that year he started to compile and compose the set of preludes and fugues for harpsichord that became the second book of The Well-Tempered Clavier . He received the title of "Royal Court Composer" from Augustus III in 1736. From 1740 to 1748 Bach copied, transcribed, expanded or programmed music in an older polyphonic style ( stile antico ) by, among others, Palestrina ( BNB I/P/2 ), Kerll ( BWV 241 ), Torri ( BWV Anh. 30 ), Bassani ( BWV 1081 ), Gasparini ( Missa Canonica ), and Caldara ( BWV 1082 ). Bach's style shifted in
14276-480: The examination for admission to the preparatory piano class run by Eugène Anthiome. Ravel won the first prize in the Conservatoire's piano competition in 1891, but otherwise he did not stand out as a student. Nevertheless, these years were a time of considerable advance in his development as a composer. The musicologist Arbie Orenstein writes that for Ravel the 1890s were a period "of immense growth ... from adolescence to maturity". In 1891 Ravel progressed to
14442-599: The excellence of American orchestras. American cuisine was apparently another matter. Arbie Orenstein After two months of planning, Ravel made a four-month tour of North America in 1928, playing and conducting. His fee was a guaranteed minimum of $ 10,000 and a constant supply of Gauloises cigarettes. He appeared with most of the leading orchestras in Canada and the US and visited twenty-five cities. Audiences were enthusiastic and
14608-418: The figured bass. In this way, Bach played a key role in the development of genres such as the keyboard concerto. Bach wrote virtuoso music for specific instruments as well as music independent of instrumentation. For instance, the sonatas and partitas for solo violin are considered the pinnacle of what has been written for violin, within reach of only accomplished players. The music fits the instrument, using
14774-604: The first performance of the Shéhérazade overture, which had a mixed reception, with boos mingling with applause from the audience, and unflattering reviews from the critics. One described the piece as "a jolting debut: a clumsy plagiarism of the Russian School" and called Ravel a "mediocrely gifted debutant ... who will perhaps become something if not someone in about ten years, if he works hard". Another critic, Pierre Lalo , thought that Ravel showed talent, but
14940-609: The full expansion came with the Well-Tempered Clavier , using all keys, which Bach apparently had been developing since around 1720, the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach being one of its earliest examples. The second page of the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach is an ornament notation and performance guide that Bach wrote for his eldest son when he was nine years old. Bach
15106-484: The full gamut of its possibilities and requiring virtuosity but without bravura . Notwithstanding that the music and the instrument seem inseparable, Bach transcribed some pieces in this collection for other instruments. Similarly, the virtuoso cello suites seem tailored to the instrument, the best of what is offered for it, but Bach arranged one of the suites for lute. The same applies to much of his most virtuoso keyboard music. Bach exploited an instrument's capacities to
15272-415: The fullest while keeping the core of the music independent of the instrument on which it is performed. In this sense, it is no surprise that Bach's music is easily and often performed on instruments it was not written for, that it is transcribed so often, and that his melodies turn up in unexpected places, such as jazz music. Apart from this, Bach left several compositions without specified instrumentation:
15438-442: The genres associated with it: more than his contemporaries (who had "moved on" to the tonal system without much exception), Bach often returned to the then-antiquated modes and genres. His Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue , emulating the chromatic fantasia genre used by earlier composers such as Dowland and Sweelinck in D dorian mode (comparable to D minor in the tonal system), is an example. Modulation , or changing key in
15604-493: The group was fluid, and at various times included Igor Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla as well as their French friends. Among the enthusiasms of the Apaches was the music of Debussy. Ravel, twelve years his junior, had known Debussy slightly since the 1890s, and their friendship, though never close, continued for more than ten years. In 1902 André Messager conducted the premiere of Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande at
15770-504: The impresario Sergei Diaghilev for his company, the Ballets Russes . Ravel began work with Diaghilev's choreographer, Michel Fokine , and designer, Léon Bakst . Fokine had a reputation for his modern approach to dance, with individual numbers replaced by continuous music. This appealed to Ravel, and after discussing the action in great detail with Fokine, Ravel began composing the music. There were frequent disagreements between
15936-462: The key of their tuning. Bach pushed the limits: he added "strange tones" in his organ playing, confusing the singers, according to an indictment he had to face in Arnstadt, and Louis Marchand , another early experimenter with modulation, seems to have avoided confrontation with Bach because the latter went further than anyone had done before. In the "Suscepit Israel" of his 1723 Magnificat , he had
16102-459: The language of music is merely the utterance of a melodic line, a simple sequence of musical notes, it can justly be accused of poverty. The addition of a Bass puts it upon a harmonic foundation and clarifies it but defines rather than gives it added richness. A melody so accompanied—even though all the notes are not those of the true Bass—or treated with simple embellishments in the upper parts or with simple chords used to be called "homophony". But it
16268-488: The last decade of his life, showing an increased integration of polyphonic structures and canons and other elements of the stile antico . His fourth and last Clavier-Übung volume, the Goldberg Variations for two-manual harpsichord, contained nine canons and was published in 1741. During this period, Bach also continued to adapt music of contemporaries such as Handel ( BNB I/K/2 ) and Stölzel ( BWV 200 ), and gave many of his own earlier compositions, such as
16434-468: The late Baroque period . He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including orchestral music such as the Brandenburg Concertos ; solo instrumental works such as the cello suites and sonatas and partitas for solo violin ; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier ; organ works such as the Schubler Chorales and
16600-744: The more than 300 cantatas he composed in Leipzig, over 100 have been lost to posterity. Most of these works expound on the Gospel readings prescribed for every Sunday and feast day in the Lutheran year. Bach started a second annual cycle on the first Sunday after the Trinity of 1724 and composed only chorale cantatas , each based on a single church hymn. These include O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort , BWV 20 , Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme , BWV 140 , Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland , BWV 62 , and Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern , BWV 1 . Bach drew
16766-484: The music, but add my own notes, expanding the harmonies and playing around with that music." At 13, he met pianist Yves Nat in Paris, who regularly gave him projects for three months, after which he returned for another lesson. Loussier began composing music while studying at the Conservatoire National Musique , having moved by then to Paris, with Nat, from the age of 16. At a competition at
16932-473: The new century Ravel's new works included the piano piece Jeux d'eau (1901), the String Quartet and the orchestral song cycle Shéhérazade (both 1903). Commentators have noted some Debussian touches in some parts of these works. Nichols calls the quartet "at once homage to and exorcism of Debussy's influence". The two composers ceased to be on friendly terms in the middle of the first decade of
17098-625: The new generation of composers typified by Satie's protégés Les Six as an establishment figure. Satie had turned against him, and commented, "Ravel refuses the Légion d'honneur, but all his music accepts it." Despite this attack, Ravel continued to admire Satie's early music, and always acknowledged the older man's influence on his own development. Ravel took a benign view of Les Six, promoting their music, and defending it against journalistic attacks. He regarded their reaction against his works as natural, and preferable to their copying his style. Through
17264-456: The opening measures, we are plunged into a world in which Ravel has but rarely introduced us." The Piano Concerto in G major was completed a year later. After the premiere in January 1932 there was high praise for the soloist, Marguerite Long, and for Ravel's score, though not for his conducting. Long, the dedicatee, played the concerto in more than twenty European cities, with the composer conducting; they planned to record it together, but at
17430-458: The organist at the New Church, with light duties, a relatively generous salary, and a new organ tuned in a temperament that allowed music written in a wider range of keys to be played. Despite strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer, tension built up between Bach and the authorities after several years in the post. Bach felt discontented by the calibre of musicians he
17596-566: The place of development. Renowned for his abilities in orchestration , Ravel made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' piano music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky 's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known. A slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies or church music. Many of his works exist in two versions: first,
17762-651: The portrait of a ballet." Ravel heard Diaghilev's verdict without protest or argument, left, and had no further dealings with him. Nichols comments that Ravel had the satisfaction of seeing the ballet staged twice by other managements before Diaghilev died. A ballet danced to the orchestral version of Le tombeau de Couperin was given at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in November 1920, and the premiere of La valse followed in December. The following year Daphnis et Chloé and L'heure espagnole were successfully revived at
17928-475: The rest of his life. At Le Belvédère Ravel composed and gardened, when not performing in Paris or abroad. His touring schedule increased considerably in the 1920s, with concerts in Britain, Sweden, Denmark, the US, Canada, Spain, Austria and Italy. Ravel was fascinated by the dynamism of American life, its huge cities, skyscrapers, and its advanced technology, and was impressed by its jazz, Negro spirituals, and
18094-441: The same free and independent manner. In that case, the apparatus of language is correspondingly enlarged and becomes practically inexhaustible if, in addition, varieties of form and rhythm are introduced. Hence, harmony becomes no longer a mere accompaniment of melody but rather a potent agency for augmenting the richness and expressiveness of musical conversation. To serve that end, a simple accompaniment will not suffice. True harmony
18260-561: The same time his peace of mind was undermined by his mother's failing health. His own health also deteriorated; he suffered from insomnia and digestive problems, underwent a bowel operation following amoebic dysentery in September 1916, and had frostbite in his feet the following winter. During the war the Ligue Nationale pour la Defense de la Musique Française was formed by Saint-Saëns, Dubois, d'Indy and others, campaigning for
18426-512: The same year Ravel gave his earliest public performance. Aged fourteen, he took part in a concert at the Salle Érard along with other pupils of Decombes, including Reynaldo Hahn and Alfred Cortot . With the encouragement of his parents, Ravel applied for entry to France's most important musical college, the Conservatoire de Paris . In November 1889, playing music by Chopin , he passed
18592-509: The scores for the films Heaven on One's Head (1965), À Belles Dents (1966), The Killing Game (1967), Dark of the Sun (1968), Monique (1970) and The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1980), the theme tune for the popular 1960s French TV series Thierry la Fronde , and the original sign-on music for La 3e chaîne , the predecessor television channel to France 3 . Loussier also composed
18758-502: The second prize for the competition. In 1902 and 1903 he won nothing: according to the musicologist Paul Landormy , the judges suspected Ravel of making fun of them by submitting cantatas so academic as to seem like parodies. In 1905 Ravel, by now thirty, competed for the last time, inadvertently causing a furore . He was eliminated in the first round, which even critics unsympathetic to his music, including Lalo, denounced as unjustifiable. The press's indignation grew when it emerged that
18924-434: The senior professor at the Conservatoire, Charles Lenepveu , was on the jury, and only his students were selected for the final round; his insistence that this was pure coincidence was not well received. L'affaire Ravel became a national scandal, leading to the early retirement of Dubois and his replacement by Fauré, appointed by the government to carry out a radical reorganisation of the Conservatoire. Among those taking
19090-436: The sensitivity of other people." The public tension led to personal estrangement. Ravel said, "It's probably better for us, after all, to be on frigid terms for illogical reasons." Nichols suggests an additional reason for the rift. In 1904 Debussy left his wife and went to live with the singer Emma Bardac . Ravel, together with his close friend and confidante Misia Edwards and the opera star Lucienne Bréval , contributed to
19256-674: The service at the St. Thomas Church on the first Sunday of Advent, and in 1717 he had tested the organ of the St. Paul's Church . In 1716, Bach and Kuhnau met on the occasion of the testing and inauguration of an organ in Halle. The position was offered to Bach only after it had been offered to Georg Philipp Telemann and then to Christoph Graupner , both of whom chose to stay where they were—Telemann in Hamburg and Graupner in Darmstadt—after using
19422-402: The sessions Ravel confined himself to supervising proceedings and Pedro de Freitas Branco conducted. His final years were cruel, for he was gradually losing his memory and some of his coordinating powers, and he was, of course, quite aware of it. Igor Stravinsky In October 1932 Ravel suffered a blow to the head in a taxi accident. The injury was not thought serious at the time, but in
19588-477: The soprano and alto choristers from the school and the tenors and basses from the school and elsewhere in Leipzig. Performing at weddings and funerals provided extra income for these groups; probably for this purpose, and for in-school training, he wrote at least six motets . As part of his regular church work, he performed other composers' motets, which served as formal models for his own. Bach's predecessor as cantor, Johann Kuhnau, had also been music director for
19754-434: The start of his career, Ravel appeared calmly indifferent to blame or praise. Those who knew him well believed that this was no pose but wholly genuine. The only opinion of his music that he truly valued was his own, perfectionist and severely self-critical. At twenty years of age he was, in the words of the biographer Burnett James, "self-possessed, a little aloof, intellectually biased, given to mild banter". He dressed like
19920-1014: The title of court composer in 1736. In the last decades of his life, Bach reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He died of complications after a botched eye surgery in 1750 at the age of 65. Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint , harmonic and motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly Italy and France. His compositions include hundreds of cantatas , both sacred and secular . He composed Latin church music , Passions , oratorios , and motets . He often adopted Lutheran hymns , not only in his larger vocal works but, for instance, also in his four-part chorales and his sacred songs . Bach wrote extensively for organ and for other keyboard instruments . He composed concertos , for instance for violin and for harpsichord , and suites , as chamber music as well as for orchestra . Many of his works employ contrapuntal techniques like canon and fugue . In
20086-463: The trio with the Pekinel sisters , features adaptations of Bach's concertos for two and three pianos. Loussier's last albums, My Personal Favorites and Beyond Bach, Other Composers I Adore , were released in 2014 on the occasion of his 80th birthday. In March 2002, Loussier filed a $ 10 million lawsuit against rapper Eminem and The Marshall Mathers LP executive producer Dr. Dre , claiming that
20252-460: The trio, replacing Charbonnier—whose left hand was affected by a stroke, resulting in his being unable to continue to play the bass—on a number of albums and concerts from at least as early as 1998 (on the album Satie: Gymnopédies Gnossiennes ). Besides Bach, the trio recorded interpretations of compositions by Handel , Scarlatti , Vivaldi , Mozart , Beethoven , Chopin , Satie , Debussy , Ravel , and Schumann . A 2005 recording, Take Bach , by
20418-513: The trumpets in E-flat play a melody in the enharmonic scale of C minor. The major development in Bach's time to which he contributed in no small way was a temperament for keyboard instruments that allowed their use in every key (12 major and 12 minor) and also modulation without retuning. His Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother , a very early work, showed a gusto for modulation unlike any contemporary work it has been compared to, but
20584-449: The upper and lower parts and still find the middle parts harmonious and agreeable. Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy , although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer. Born to
20750-523: The work in the same year. Ravel's second ballet of 1912 was Adélaïde ou le langage des fleurs , danced to the score of Valses nobles et sentimentales , which opened at the Châtelet in April. Daphnis et Chloé opened at the same theatre in June. This was his largest-scale orchestral work, and took him immense trouble and several years to complete. Daphnis et Chloé was commissioned in or about 1909 by
20916-624: The writings of Poe , Baudelaire and Mallarmé . At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, Ravel was much struck by the new Russian works conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov . This music had a lasting effect on both Ravel and his older contemporary Claude Debussy , as did the exotic sound of the Javanese gamelan , also heard during the Exposition. Émile Decombes took over as Ravel's piano teacher in 1889; in
21082-563: Was Basque but had grown up in Madrid. In 19th-century terms, Joseph had married beneath his status – Marie was illegitimate and barely literate – but the marriage was a happy one. Some of Joseph's inventions were successful, including an early internal combustion engine and a notorious circus machine, the "Whirlwind of Death", an automotive loop-the-loop that was a major attraction until a fatal accident at Barnum and Bailey's Circus in 1903. Both Ravel's parents were Roman Catholics ; Marie
21248-435: Was "a marked man, against whom all weapons were good". He wrote some substantial works while studying with Fauré, including the overture Shéhérazade and a single movement violin sonata , but he won no prizes, and therefore was expelled again in 1900. As a former student he was allowed to attend Fauré's classes as a non-participating "auditeur" until finally abandoning the Conservatoire in 1903. In May 1897 Ravel conducted
21414-704: Was 15 years old. Bach later wrote several other works on the same theme. When Bach revisited Reincken in 1720 and showed him his improvisatory skills on the organ, Reincken reportedly remarked: "I thought that this art was dead, but I see that it lives in you." In 1706, Bach applied for a post as organist at the Blasius Church in Mühlhausen . As part of his application, he had a cantata performed on Easter, 24 April 1707, likely an early version of his Christ lag in Todes Banden . Bach's application
21580-427: Was a strong influence on his life and music. Among his earliest memories were folk songs she sang to him. The household was not rich, but the family was comfortable, and the two boys had happy childhoods. Ravel senior delighted in taking his sons to factories to see the latest mechanical devices, but he also had a keen interest in music and culture in general. In later life, Ravel recalled, "Throughout my childhood I
21746-598: Was accepted a month later, and he took up the post in July. The position included significantly higher remuneration, improved conditions, and a better choir. Four months after arriving at Mühlhausen, Bach married Maria Barbara Bach , his second cousin. Bach convinced the church and town government at Mühlhausen to fund an expensive renovation of the organ at the Blasius Church. In 1708, Bach wrote Gott ist mein König ,
21912-464: Was also something of a free-thinker , a trait inherited by her elder son. He was baptised in the Ciboure parish church six days after he was born. The family moved to Paris three months later, and there a younger son, Édouard, was born. (He was close to his father, whom he eventually followed into the engineering profession.) Maurice was particularly devoted to their mother; her Basque-Spanish heritage
22078-690: Was appointed Thomaskantor director of church music in Leipzig. He had to direct the St. Thomas School and provide four churches with music, the St. Thomas Church , the St. Nicholas Church , and to a lesser extent, the New Church and St. Peter's Church . This was "the leading cantorate in Protestant Germany", located in the mercantile city in the Electorate of Saxony , which he held for 27 years, until his death. During that time he gained further prestige through honorary appointments at
22244-471: Was appointed court musician in the chapel of Duke Johann Ernst III in Weimar . His role there is unclear, but it probably included menial, non-musical duties. During his seven-month tenure at Weimar, his reputation as a keyboardist spread so widely that he was invited to inspect the new organ and give the inaugural recital at the New Church (now Bach Church ) in Arnstadt , about 30 kilometres (19 mi) southwest of Weimar. On 14 August 1703, he became
22410-404: Was at the core of Bach's style, and his compositions are to a large extent considered to have laid down the rules for the evolving scheme that dominated musical expression in the next centuries. Some examples of this characteristic of Bach's style and its influence: Bach's insistence on the tonal system and contribution to shaping it did not imply he was less at ease with the older modal system and
22576-512: Was born in Eisenach , the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach , in present-day Germany, on 21 March 1685 O.S. (31 March 1685 N.S. ). He was the eighth and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach , the director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt . His father likely taught him violin and basic music theory . His uncles were all professional musicians who worked as church organists, court chamber musicians, and composers. One uncle, Johann Christoph Bach , introduced him to
22742-495: Was born, and Maria Barbara's elder, unmarried sister joined them. She remained to help run the household until she died in 1729. Three sons were also born in Weimar: Wilhelm Friedemann , Carl Philipp Emanuel , and Johann Gottfried Bernhard . Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara had three more children—twins born in 1713 and a single birth; none survived past their first birthday. Bach's time in Weimar began
22908-455: Was clean-shaven. Around 1900 Ravel and a number of innovative young artists, poets, critics and musicians joined together in an informal group; they came to be known as Les Apaches ("The Hooligans"), a name coined by Viñes to represent their status as "artistic outcasts". They met regularly until the beginning of the First World War, and members stimulated one another with intellectual argument and performances of their works. The membership of
23074-420: Was collaborating with. He called one of them, Geyersbach, a "Zippel Fagottist" ( weenie bassoonist ). Late one evening, Geyersbach went after Bach with a stick. Bach filed a complaint against Geyersbach with the authorities. They acquitted Geyersbach with a minor reprimand and ordered Bach to be more moderate about the musical qualities he expected from his students. Some months later, Bach upset his employer with
23240-434: Was commissioned to provide a score for Ida Rubinstein 's ballet company, and having been unable to secure the rights to orchestrate Albéniz 's Iberia , he decided on "an experiment in a very special and limited direction ... a piece lasting seventeen minutes and consisting wholly of orchestral tissue without music". Ravel continued that the work was "one long, very gradual crescendo. There are no contrasts, and there
23406-474: Was costly. He received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on the clavichord . Johann Christoph exposed him to the works of great composers of the day, including South Germans such as Johann Caspar Kerll , Johann Jakob Froberger , and Johann Pachelbel (under whom Johann Christoph had studied); North Germans; Frenchmen such as Jean-Baptiste Lully , Louis Marchand , and Marin Marais ; and
23572-454: Was declining. On 2 June, Heinrich von Brühl wrote to one of the Leipzig burgomasters to request that his music director, Gottlob Harrer , fill the Thomaskantor and Director musices posts "upon the eventual ... decease of Mr. Bach". Becoming blind, Bach underwent eye surgery in March 1750 and again in April by the British eye surgeon John Taylor , a man widely understood today as
23738-518: Was dissolved. Loussier set up his own recording studio, Studio Miraval , which opened in 1977, where he worked on compositions for acoustic and electric instruments. He recorded with musicians such as Pink Floyd , Elton John , Sting , Chris Rea , and Sade . Parts of Pink Floyd's album The Wall were recorded there. In 1985, the tricentenary of Bach's birth, Loussier revived the trio with percussionist André Arpino and bassist Vincent Charbonnier. Bassist Benoit Dunoyer de Segonzac has also played in
23904-524: Was earning a living as a café pianist. Ravel was one of the first musicians – Debussy was another – who recognised Satie's originality and talent. Satie's constant experiments in musical form were an inspiration to Ravel, who counted them "of inestimable value". In 1897 Ravel was readmitted to the Conservatoire, studying composition with Fauré, and taking private lessons in counterpoint with André Gedalge . Both these teachers, particularly Fauré, regarded him highly and were key influences on his development as
24070-426: Was examined by Clovis Vincent , a well-known Paris neurosurgeon. Vincent advised surgical treatment. He thought a tumour unlikely, and expected to find ventricular dilatation that surgery might prevent from progressing. Ravel's brother Edouard accepted this advice; as Henson comments, the patient was in no state to express a considered view. After the operation there seemed to be an improvement in his condition, but it
24236-576: Was generally quite specific on ornamentation in his compositions (in his time, much ornamentation was not written out by composers but rather considered a liberty of the performer), and his ornamentation was often quite elaborate. For instance, the "Aria" of the Goldberg Variations has rich ornamentation in nearly every measure. Bach's approach to ornamentation can also be seen in a keyboard arrangement he made of Marcello 's Oboe Concerto : he added explicit ornamentation, which centuries later
24402-460: Was generally seen, in France and abroad, as the leading French composer of the era. Fauré wrote to him, "I am happier than you can imagine about the solid position which you occupy and which you have acquired so brilliantly and so rapidly. It is a source of joy and pride for your old professor." Ravel was offered the Legion of Honour in 1920, and although he declined the decoration, he was viewed by
24568-532: Was hired as Thomaskantor ( cantor at St Thomas's ) in Leipzig . There, he composed music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city and its university's student ensemble Collegium Musicum . In 1726, he began publishing his keyboard and organ music. In Leipzig, as had happened during some of his earlier positions, he had difficult relations with his employer. This situation was somewhat remedied when his sovereign, Augustus III of Poland , granted him
24734-457: Was his motto." Vaughan Williams's recollections throw some light on Ravel's private life, about which the latter's reserved and secretive personality has led to much speculation. Vaughan Williams, Rosenthal and Marguerite Long have all recorded that Ravel frequented brothels; Long attributed this to his self-consciousness about his diminutive stature, and consequent lack of confidence with women. By other accounts, none of them first-hand, Ravel
24900-589: Was in 1909. As the guest of the Vaughan Williamses, he visited London, where he played for the Société des Concerts Français, gaining favourable reviews and enhancing his growing international reputation. The Société Nationale de Musique , founded in 1871 to promote the music of rising French composers, had been dominated since the mid-1880s by a conservative faction led by Vincent d'Indy . Ravel, together with several other former pupils of Fauré, set up
25066-458: Was in general a slow and painstaking worker, and reworking his earlier piano compositions enabled him to increase the number of pieces published and performed. There appears to have been no mercenary motive for this; Ravel was known for his indifference to financial matters. The pieces that began as piano compositions and were then given orchestral dress were Pavane pour une infante défunte (orchestrated 1910), Une barque sur l'océan (1906, from
25232-465: Was in love with Misia Edwards, or wanted to marry the violinist Hélène Jourdan-Morhange . Rosenthal records and discounts contemporary speculation that Ravel, a lifelong bachelor, may have been homosexual. Such speculation recurred in a 2000 life of Ravel by Benjamin Ivry ; subsequent studies have concluded that Ravel's sexuality and personal life remain a mystery. Ravel's first concert outside France
25398-540: Was in sympathy with the fashion for "dépouillement" – the "stripping away" of pre-war extravagance to reveal the essentials. Many of his works from the 1920s are noticeably sparer in texture than earlier pieces. Other influences on him in this period were jazz and atonality . Jazz was popular in Parisian cafés, and French composers such as Darius Milhaud incorporated elements of it in their work. Ravel commented that he preferred jazz to grand opera , and its influence
25564-622: Was inspired by different sounds. He stayed in Cuba for a year. Early in his career, Loussier was an accompanist for singers Frank Alamo , Charles Aznavour , Léo Ferré and Catherine Sauvage . In 1959, he formed the Jacques Loussier Trio with string bass player Pierre Michelot —who had played with Django Reinhardt and the Quintette du Hot Club de France —and percussionist Christian Garros . They used Bach's compositions as
25730-409: Was less moved. After a performance of his St Matthew Passion , someone said it all sounded much like opera. In concerted playing in Bach's time, the basso continuo, consisting of instruments such as organ, viola da gamba , or harpsichord, usually had the role of accompaniment, providing a piece's harmonic and rhythmic foundation. Beginning in the 1720s, Bach had the organ play concertante (i.e., as
25896-400: Was obviously one of great individuality, creating its own laws, constantly in evolution, expressing itself freely, yet always faithful to French tradition. For Debussy, the musician and the man, I have had profound admiration, but by nature I am different from Debussy ... I think I have always personally followed a direction opposed to that of [his] symbolism ." During the first years of
26062-437: Was one of the dozens of private societies in the major German-speaking cities established by musically active university students; they had become increasingly important in public musical life and were typically led by the most prominent professionals in a city. In the words of Christoph Wolff , assuming the directorship was a shrewd move that "consolidated Bach's firm grip on Leipzig's principal musical institutions". Every week,
26228-475: Was one, and records that Ravel was a very demanding teacher when he thought his pupil had talent. Like his own teacher, Fauré, he was concerned that his pupils should find their own individual voices and not be excessively influenced by established masters. He warned Rosenthal that it was impossible to learn from studying Debussy's music: "Only Debussy could have written it and made it sound like only Debussy can sound." When George Gershwin asked him for lessons in
26394-650: Was particularly attracted to the Italian style, in which one or more solo instruments alternate section-by-section with the full orchestra throughout a movement . In Weimar, Bach continued to play and compose for the organ and perform concert music with the duke's ensemble. He also began to write the preludes and fugues that were later assembled into his monumental work The Well-Tempered Clavier ("clavier" meaning clavichord or harpsichord), consisting of two books, each containing 24 preludes and fugues in every major and minor key. In Weimar Bach also started work on
26560-843: Was published in 1751. Together with one of J.S. Bach's former students, Johann Friedrich Agricola , C.P.E. Bach also wrote the obituary (" Nekrolog "), which was published in Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek [ de ] , a periodical journal produced by the Society of Musical Sciences, in 1754. From an early age, Bach studied the works of his musical contemporaries of the Baroque period and those of earlier generations, and those influences are reflected in his music. Like his contemporaries Handel, Telemann, and Vivaldi, Bach composed concertos, suites, recitatives, da capo arias , and four-part choral music, and employed basso continuo . His music
26726-426: Was sensitive to music. My father, much better educated in this art than most amateurs are, knew how to develop my taste and to stimulate my enthusiasm at an early age." There is no record that Ravel received any formal general schooling in his early years; his biographer Roger Nichols suggests that the boy may have been chiefly educated by his father. When he was seven, Ravel started piano lessons with Henri Ghys ,
26892-503: Was the basis of much of his work. In elaborating these hymns into his chorale preludes, he wrote more cogent and tightly integrated works than most, even when they were massive and lengthy. The large-scale structure of every major Bach sacred vocal work is evidence of subtle, elaborate planning to create religiously and musically powerful expression. For example, the St Matthew Passion , like other works of its kind, illustrated
27058-617: Was the only person who immediately understood the music. Ravel predicted that the premiere of the Rite would be seen as an event of historic importance equal to that of Pelléas et Mélisande . When Germany invaded France in 1914 Ravel tried to join the French Air Force . He considered his small stature and light weight ideal for an aviator, but was rejected because of his age and a minor heart complaint. While waiting to be enlisted, Ravel composed Trois Chansons , his only work for
27224-494: Was to be a composer. From this point he concentrated on composition. His works from the period include the songs "Un grand sommeil noir" and "D'Anne jouant de l'espinette" to words by Paul Verlaine and Clément Marot , and the piano pieces Menuet antique and Habanera (for four hands), the latter eventually incorporated into the Rapsodie espagnole . At around this time, Joseph Ravel introduced his son to Erik Satie , who
27390-462: Was too indebted to Debussy and should instead emulate Beethoven . Over the succeeding decades Lalo became Ravel's most implacable critic. In 1899 Ravel composed his first piece to become widely known, though it made little impact initially: Pavane pour une infante défunte (" Pavane for a dead princess"). It was originally a solo piano work, commissioned by the Princesse de Polignac . From
27556-458: Was unable to meet the production schedule, and Jacques Ibert wrote most of the score. Ravel completed three songs for baritone and orchestra intended for the film; they were published as Don Quichotte à Dulcinée . The manuscript orchestral score is in Ravel's hand, but Lucien Garban and Manuel Rosenthal helped in transcription. Ravel composed no more after this. The exact nature of his illness
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