The Ballets of Maurice Ravel

Mawer, Deborah

ISBN 10: 0754630293 / ISBN 13: 9780754630296

Published by Routledge, 2006

About this Item

Seller Inventory # I-9780754630296

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Ballets of Maurice Ravel
• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0754630293
• ISBN 13: 9780754630296
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Maurice Ravel, as composer and scenario writer, collaborated with some of the greatest ballet directors, choreographers, designers and dancers of his time, including Diaghilev, Ida Rubinstein, Benois and Nijinsky. In this book, the first study dedicated to Ravel's ballets, Deborah Mawer explores these relationships and argues that ballet music should not be regarded in isolation from its associated arts. Indeed, Ravel's views on ballet and other stage works privilege a synthesized aesthetic. The first chapter establishes a historical and critical context for Ravel's scores, engaging en route with multimedia theory. Six main ballets from Daphnis et Chloé through to Boléro are considered holistically alongside themes such as childhood fantasy, waltzing and neoclassicism. Each work is examined in terms of its evolution, premiere, critical reception and reinterpretation through to the present; new findings result from primary-source research, undertaken especially in Paris. The final chapter discusses the reasons for Ravel's collaborations and the strengths and weaknesses of his interpersonal relations. Mawer emphasizes the importance of the performative dimension in realizing Ravel's achievement, and proposes that the composer's large-scale oeuvre can, in a sense, be viewed as a balletic undertaking. In so doing, this book adds significantly to current research interest in artistic production and interplay in early twentieth-century Paris.

About the Author

Deborah Mawer is Senior Lecturer in Music at Lancaster University, UK. Her research focuses upon the analysis and history of early twentieth-century French music in its cultural setting, with a particular interest in ballet. She is author of Darius Milhaud: Modality and Structure in Music of the 1920s (Ashgate, 1997) and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Ravel (Cambridge, 2000). She also writes on issues in music education.