Maurice Ravel

Here is the revised memorial biography, refined and grounded strictly on well-documented facts from authoritative sources:

Joseph‑Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, in the Basses‑Pyrénées region of France. His mother was of Basque origin and his father a Swiss engineer, and the family moved to Paris when he was still an infant, where Ravel would grow up and later study.(operadeparis.fr)

Ravel entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1889 at the age of 14, studying piano and later composition under Gabriel Fauré. His modern, innovative style met with resistance from the conservative establishment; he notably failed to win the Prix de Rome despite several attempts, receiving only the second prize in 1901 for his cantata Myrrha. This series of setbacks sparked public debate and even led to the resignation of the Conservatoire’s director.(resources.ircam.fr)

Ravel developed a highly individual musical voice characterized by meticulous structure, clarity, rich orchestration, and influences from Baroque, neoclassical, and jazz idioms. He composed across genres—piano works, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet scores, operas, and song cycles—though he notably wrote no symphonies or sacred music. Among his most celebrated compositions are Boléro (1928), Daphnis et Chloé (1912), the piano works Gaspard de la nuit (1908) and Miroirs (1905), and the operas L’Heure espagnole and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges.(en.wikipedia.org)

In the 1920s and 1930s, after Debussy’s death, Ravel was widely regarded as France’s foremost living composer, both at home and internationally. He also embraced the then-new medium of recordings: although his technical skill as a pianist or conductor was limited, he took part in or supervised recordings of his music, including piano rolls and discs, making him one of the first composers to use recording technology to broaden his audience.(en.wikipedia.org)

Ravel worked slowly and with great care, producing a relatively small body of work—Scholars note roughly eighty-five catalogued works, many of which exist in both piano and orchestral versions.(en.wikipedia.org) In 1937, Ravel developed a serious brain illness; he underwent surgery in Paris but, despite a brief improvement, he lapsed into a coma and died on December 28, 1937, in Paris. He was buried on December 30, 1937, in Levallois‑Perret cemetery beside his parents.(en.wikipedia.org)