Maurice Ravel -The Swiss Watchmaker

Portrait of Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel was born on 7 March 1875 in the small fishing village of Ciboure, in the Basque region near the Franco-Spanish border. This cultural crossroads—half French, half Spanish—would quietly shape his artistic imagination for the rest of his life.

His father, Pierre-Joseph Ravel, was a French engineer of Swiss descent: a man of precision, mechanics, and invention. His mother, Marie Delouart, was Basque, warm and expressive, deeply rooted in Spanish culture and song. Their meeting—during her work on the Spanish railways—brought together two contrasting worlds: discipline and lyricism, structure and instinct. In many ways, Maurice Ravel would spend his life reconciling these same opposites in music.

The parents of Maurice Ravel,
Pierre-Joseph Ravel and Marie Delouart.

Only a few months after his birth, the family moved to Paris. Ravel’s childhood was happy and intellectually nurturing. His parents encouraged both their sons—Maurice and his younger brother Édouard, born in 1878—to follow their natural inclinations. Maurice’s was unmistakably music. He began piano lessons at the age of seven, showing early signs of refinement rather than raw virtuosity.

Unlike many families of the time, Ravel’s parents viewed a musical career not with suspicion but with pride. In 1889, Pierre-Joseph enrolled his son at France’s most prestigious musical institution, the Conservatoire de Paris. That same year, the Paris Exposition Universelle brought together artists, engineers, and scientists from across the globe. For the fourteen-year-old Ravel, this encounter with technological brilliance and cultural diversity was electrifying. It awakened a fascination with colour, rhythm, and exotic sonorities that would later become hallmarks of his style.

Maurice Ravel at the age of twelve

Friendships and Influences

At the Conservatoire, Ravel formed a deep friendship with the Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes, who would later become one of the foremost interpreters of his music. The two boys spent countless hours playing piano duets, while their mothers chatted nearby in Spanish—a small domestic scene that mirrored the blend of intimacy and cultural hybridity in Ravel’s art.

In 1893, Ravel fell under the influence of Erik Satie, nine years his senior. The two composers could not have been more different: Satie’s bohemian carelessness stood in sharp contrast to Ravel’s meticulous elegance. Yet they shared a disdain for academic rigidity and a desire to rethink musical expression. They often performed in the same Parisian venues, absorbing each other’s ideas while maintaining distinct artistic identities.

Physically, Ravel was slight—only 1.53 meters tall—with a disproportionately large head and delicate features. Conscious of his appearance, he cultivated an immaculate elegance: finely tailored clothes, a carefully groomed beard, and impeccable manners. Socially, he was polite and affable, yet reserved. Even his closest friends often felt they never fully knew what he was thinking.

The “Ravel Affair”

Ravel’s originality did not sit well with the conservative establishment of the Conservatoire. Like many ambitious young composers, he repeatedly competed for the prestigious Prix de Rome—France’s highest honour for emerging talent. Between 1900 and 1905, he made five attempts. Each time, he was rejected.

By 1905, however, Ravel was no longer an unknown student but an already acclaimed composer. His fourth rejection sparked what became known as L’affaire Ravel, a national scandal that exposed deep flaws in the institution’s judging system. Public outrage led to the resignation of the Conservatoire’s director, Théodore Dubois, and his replacement by Gabriel Fauré, a supporter of Ravel and a figure committed to reform. The affair marked a turning point in French musical life, opening the door to new aesthetic freedoms.

Though often grouped with Claude Debussy as a revolutionary, Ravel remained deeply attached to the past. He believed innovation could coexist with tradition, and many of his works deliberately adopt classical or archaic forms. Clinging to the happiness of his childhood, he developed a fascination with mechanical toys, clocks, and precision mechanisms—objects that later found musical expression in his operas L’Heure espagnole and L’Enfant et les sortilèges. Here, Ravel earned his nickname: the Swiss watchmaker of music.

Spain and Artistic Maturity

Ravel’s love for Spain brought forth some of his most inspired creations. He often joked that his emotional reserve came from his Basque heritage.

Scenic moment from Daphnis et Chloé .

 At the beginning of the twentieth century, he became a central figure in Parisian artistic circles. His encounter with the impresario Sergei Diaghilev led to the commission of the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, premiered in 1912—a work of luminous orchestral imagination.

Despite his growing fame, Ravel lived a quiet, almost domestic life. He remained closely attached to his family, sharing a home with his brother Édouard and later with his mother. Even after his father’s death in 1908, he did not leave her. Romantic relationships appear to have played little role in his life; his creative energy was devoted almost entirely to music.

War, Loss, and Silence

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 shattered this stability. Initially rejected for military service due to his frail physique, Ravel eventually enlisted in 1915 as a driver and served near Verdun. Though the horrors of war affected him deeply, nothing compared to the devastation caused by his mother’s death in 1917.

Ravel believed in inspiration rather than forced labour. In the three years following her death, he composed almost nothing. Memories embedded in the family home became unbearable, and he moved to Montfort-l’Amaury, west of Paris. The Sunday gatherings he hosted there—bringing together musicians, writers, and artists—would later become legendary.

The music room at Ravel’s house in Montfort-l’Amaury,
where he hosted the legendary Sunday
gatherings of artists and musicians.

Fame and Final Years

In the 1920s, Ravel resumed public life with renewed intensity. A London tour in 1922 received mixed critical responses, but his reputation continued to grow. Between 1927 and 1928, he undertook an extensive tour of Europe, Canada, and the United States, where he was celebrated as the greatest French composer of his generation.

In 1928, the dancer Ida Rubinstein commissioned him to orchestrate a Spanish-style ballet. Ravel chose instead to write something entirely new: Boléro. Premiered that same year, it became his most famous—and paradoxically most misunderstood—work.

A tragic turning point came in October 1932, when Ravel suffered a head injury in a taxi accident in Paris. Gradually, his ability to speak, write, and coordinate movement deteriorated. Though his mind remained lucid, he could no longer compose—a torment beyond words for a man whose inner world was made of sound.

After years of suffering, a risky brain operation was attempted in December 1937. No tumour was found. Ravel briefly regained consciousness before falling into a coma. He died on 28 December 1937, at the age of sixty-two.

Maurice Ravel is remembered not only for the brilliance and fire of his music, but for its extraordinary precision—music crafted like a perfectly balanced mechanism, where emotion and intellect coexist in flawless equilibrium.