- He is by far the most financially successful composer that France has ever produced. His music still brings in several million dollars a year in royalties.
- Ravel's last five years were tragic. He could conceive music and told friends he had worked out a symphony, a string quartet, and parts of an opera in his head, but because of his aphasia he was unable to put them on paper. Shortly before his death he lamented, "I still have so much music to write!".
- Composed his Piano Concerto in D Major for the Left Hand under commission of Paul Wittgenstein, a concert pianist who lost his right arm during World War I. Unfortunately, Wittgenstein didn't like the final composition, and didn't change his mind about it until after Ravel's death. The work, however, has since become a staple of the concert repertoire.
- Growing up he had to be bribed six sous an hour by his parents to practice the piano.
- Composed his two piano concertos simultaneously, beginning both concertos in 1929 and ending both concertos within two years. What is even more remarkable is that these two concertos are widely felt to be of greatly contrasting styles and moods.
- Father and mother are of Swiss and Basque descent, respectively.
- He wrote several songs for G.W. Pabst's 1933 film version of "Don Quixote", but they were rejected in favor of the songs that Jacques Ibert eventually composed for the film. Ravel later turned his score into the song cycle "Don Quichotte a Dulcinee".
- His mother was Spanish, and Ravel wrote several Spanish-related pieces, among them "Alborada del Gracioso" and the opera "L'Heure Espagnole".
- Jazz musicians Gil Evans and Miles Davis both considered Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli's 1957 recording of Ravel's 'Piano Concerto in G Major' to be one of their favorite pieces of music.
- Although Ravel never pursued teaching full-time, he did give private lessons in composition and orchestration. His most famous student was Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was three years older and already an established composer when he sought out Ravel in 1907.
- Ravel's neurological condition, commonly attributed to aphasia, predated his 1932 auto accident. After World War I he began complaining of "brain fatigue" and found it harder to compose. By 1927 he was suffering memory lapses and confusion while playing at concerts, and by 1929 he was beginning to have trouble communicating. Once a formidable pianist, he was unable to give the premiere of his Piano Concerto in G in January 1932. Ravel's accident that year greatly exacerbated this underlying condition; it was not the root cause.
- On December 17, 1937, Ravel underwent exploratory brain surgery in Paris. No signs of tumor or physical abnormality were found, so a biopsy wasn't performed. After the procedure he briefly regained consciousness, then slipped into a coma and died on December 28. Neurologists believe Ravel's likely cause of death was subdural hematoma (bleeding on the brain) resulting from the surgery itself. The composer's family refused to allow an autopsy so the exact nature of his illness will probably never be known.
- In 1928 Ravel went on a four-month tour of the US and Canada, playing and conducting his music. He met George Gershwin and listened to jazz at New York's Cotton Club and on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. He also gave his only known lecture (with the aid of an interpreter), at the Rice Institute in Houston, Texas.
- Did not like Arnold Schönberg's new serial method of composition, calling it "laboratory music".
- When pupils completed their private studies with him, Ravel bid them adieu by saying "Now hate me!" That was his way of urging them to find their own musical style. Ravel claimed Ralph Vaughan Williams was his only student who didn't end up imitating him.
- Since 1960 "Boléro" has generated an estimated $60 million in royalties for the Ravel Estate. The work became public domain in most of the world in 2016, but will not reach that status in the US until January 1, 2025.
- In 2016 France's Ministry of Culture estimated that a live performance of Ravel's "Boléro" begins every 10 minutes. The piece is 17 minutes long, which means that at any given moment "Boléro" is being played somewhere in the world.
- He loved being near water and wrote many of his compositions, including "Rhapsodie espagnole", onboard the Aimèe, a yacht owned by his friends.
- Was a chain smoker, often photographed with a cigarette in his hand or mouth. He could not get through a concert without having to dash outside for what he called "a few life-saving puffs".
- Was a lifelong dandy who closely followed fashion trends. He had a well-groomed beard and mustache until his mid-30s, then shaved them off when they came to be considered old school. Ravel was also one of the first men in France to wear pastel-colored dress shirts.
- Dapper to the end, Ravel was buried wearing a maestro's formal white tie and tails and off-white kid gloves. This elegance was offset by a turban-like bandage covering the aftermath of his unsuccessful brain surgery.
- In 1921 Ravel bought "Le Belvédère", a house in Montfort-l'Amaury some 25 miles (40km) west of Paris. It was his home until his death. He subdivided its four big rooms into 12 tiny ones and filled them with eccentric furnishings and bric-a-brac. "Le Belvédère" is now a museum, preserved mostly as the composer left it.
- In January 1911 Ravel performed some of Erik Satie's earliest piano music in a concert of the Independent Music Society in Paris. This event made Satie famous after many years of obscurity.
- Had a long-running feud with the French musical establishment. Ravel refused the Legion of Honor in 1920 and never applied for a seat in the Académie des Beaux-Arts, even though by the 1930s he was widely considered France's greatest living composer. He did accept an honorary PhD in music from Oxford University in 1928.
- Was a slow, painstaking composer. In 40 years Ravel produced some 60 works, and nearly 20 of these were orchestral arrangements of his existing piano music and works by others. The latter includes his famous transcription of Modest Mussorgsky's keyboard suite "Pictures at an Exhibition".
- There has been much speculation about Ravel's private life, which he kept veiled in secrecy. He never married, had many friends but no real intimates, and for most of his life lived alone or with his mother. In 1922 he proposed marriage to his friend violinist Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, having previously expressed no romantic interest in her; she laughed it off as a joke and he dropped the matter.
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