About Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel (7th March 1875-28th December 1937) was a French composer and pianist. His piano music, chamber music, and orchestral works have become staples in the repertoire. Ravel's piano compositions, such as Miroirs and Gaspard de la nuit are virtuosic, and his orchestrations, such as Daphnis et Chloé and his orchestral arrangement of Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, are notable for the effective use of tonal color and variety of sound and instrumentation. To the general public he is probably best known for his orchestral work, Boléro, which he considered a trivial work and once described as "a piece for orchestra without music". According to SACEM, Ravel's estate earns more royalties than that of any other French musician. According to international copyright law, Ravel's works are public domain since January 1, 2008 in most countries. In France, due to anomalous copyright law extensions to account for the two world wars, they will not enter the public domain until 2015.