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Maurice Ravel -The Swiss Watchmaker

Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875, in the small fishing village of Ciboure in the Basque region, near the Franco-Spanish border.  His father, Pierre-Joseph, was a Frenchman of Swiss descent. Pierre-Joseph, a distinguished engineer, met and fell in love with his future wife, a young and beautiful Basque, Marie Delouart, at the time she worked on the Spanish railways.  A few months after Maurice's birth, the family moved from Ciboure to Paris. The parents of Maurice Ravel, Pierre-Joseph Ravel and Marie Delouart. Maurice had a happy childhood. The parents encouraged their two children - Edouard was born in 1878 - to follow their vocation. Maurice's inclination was music. He started music lessons at the age of seven.  Unlike the parents of other composers, Pierre-Joseph viewed positively the prospect of a musical career and sent Maurice to the France's most important musical college, the Conservatoire de Paris in 1889. In the same year, the Paris Exhibition brought toget

Carl Maria von Weber - Euryanthe: Overture

Handel - Water Music, Suite I in F major (HWV 348)

Camille Saint-Saëns - Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78 (The Organ Symphony)

Johann Strauss II - Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka, Op. 214 in A major

Maurice Ravel - Valses nobles et sentimentales

Johann Strauss II - "Frühlingsstimmen", Op. 410 ("Voices of Spring")

Antonio Vivaldi - Concerto No. 3 in F major, Op. 8, RV 293, "Autumn" (L'autunno)

Johannes Brahms - Hungarian Dance No. 3 in F Major - Allegretto

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550

Antonín Dvořák - Symphony No. 9 in E minor "From the New World", Op. 95

Georges Bizet - L' Arlésienne (The Girl from Arles), Suite No. 2

César Franck - Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra

Claude Debussy - La Mer (The sea, three symphonic sketches for orchestra)

Beethoven - Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, "Pastoral" Symphony

Antonin Dvořák - Symphony No.8 in G major, Op. 88

Franz Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsody No.14 (Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Melodies)

Georges Bizet - L’ Arlésienne, Suite No. 1

Liszt - Piano Concerto No.1 in E-flat Major

Handel - Concerto for Organ and Orchestra No.13 in F Major, HWV 295, "The Cuckoo and The Nahtingale"

Joseph Haydn - Symphony in G minor "Surprise Symphony"The chase to Jean-Honoré Fragonard