Você está na página 1de 2

MAURICE RAVELS PERSONALITY

IN HIS WORK

JAIME ESPINOSA PEDROSA


Maurice Ravel, one of the most original and creative composer of the history of music,
is not distinguished by a large works catalog, and this is related to the conditions of the
Ravel creative personality, which is marked by an insecurity in the composition process
and in his attitude in front his own art. In this essay I will explain how Ravels
personality is present in his work through three important points: the insecurity in his
artist capacities, the highest degree of thoroughness in his composition and his
composition process.

Ravels insecurity is related with impotence in his artist capacities. The origin of this
insecurity comes from the conflict between some concrete situation of his life and the
peculiar needs of his mind to create. Ravels creation was a search inside him, a music
search in his mind, he has to crystallize the musical idea and then capture this in the
score, and to achieve this process, he needs to work in solitude and with intense
concentration. But this precarious process became more difficult as he grew older, when
the problems of the mundane existence, sickness, death of his parents, and war, become
even more difficult this task.

One of the consequence of this situation was the highest degree of thoroughness which
Ravel applied in his composition. We can realize it like an evidence when we hear, for
instance, Daphnis et Chloe. The complexity of the musical writing, the union of the
parts and the whole, the technical difficulties for all of the instruments, make this work
a marvelous piece. Some critics of his time considered that this kind of control in the
final musical product was in some cases excessive, and it let not place to the spontaneity
in personal expression.

Another symptom of this insecurity is manifested in the process of composition, which


seems like crystallization. The process could take several years, in which time, Ravel
conceives with a growing precision the nature of the new work. Ravel spent the time to
determinate what was necessary and what was superfluous, creating with objective
definition the idea of the musical work, without writing a single note. The time required
to create his music was variety and depends of the pieces, but, for instance, he latest
three years to compose Daphnis et Chloe, and after the war, he needs about a year for
work.

Definitely, in a history musical moment in which the composers was searching the way
to create new music, breaking the traditional rules of tonality, Ravel imposes his
creative personality using the past, the tradition, the tonality, to create a truly original
music, marked by the qualities of his peculiar creative mind.

Você também pode gostar