Classical music
Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), one of the masters of French music, had roots on Lake Geneva: his father, the engineer Joseph Ravel, was born in Versoix, on the lakeshore. In the spring of 1913, Ravel stayed in Clarens, at the Hôtel des Crêtes, right beside the Hôtel du Châtelard where the Stravinsky family was lodging: there the two musicians worked together on the orchestration of Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina” for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, while Stravinsky was completing “The Rite of Spring”. To Ravel we owe the “Boléro”, “Daphnis et Chloé”, “La Valse” and the “Piano Concerto for the Left Hand”.
Maurice Ravel, a spring in Clarens
Roots on Lake Geneva
Though Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) is one of the masters of French music, he had ties to Lake Geneva: his father, the engineer Joseph Ravel, was born in Versoix, on the lakeshore. Switzerland was therefore no stranger to him when he came to work on the Riviera.
March 1913: Clarens, with Stravinsky
In March 1913, Ravel joined Igor Stravinsky in Clarens to prepare, at Diaghilev’s request, an edition of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina for the Ballets Russes. He stayed at the Hôtel des Crêtes, right beside the Hôtel du Châtelard where the Stravinsky family was living, and remained until the end of April.
The Rite of Spring at the piano
During this stay, Stravinsky played him The Rite of Spring at the piano, which he had just finished, and showed him his Three Japanese Lyrics. In return, Ravel worked on his own Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé and completed in Clarens “Soupir”, which he dedicated to Stravinsky. It was also at Clarens that he grew close to the conductor Ernest Ansermet, who was renting a small house there.
1934: a final stay on the Mont-Pèlerin
Twenty years after Clarens, Ravel returned one last time to the Riviera. In 1934, already struck by the illness that would take him, he stayed at the Mon-Repos medical establishment on the Mont-Pèlerin, above Vevey. The building is today the Mirador grand hotel, where another composer, Henri Dutilleux, would later find the calm that suited writing.
The master of Boléro
Beyond this Lake Geneva episode, we owe to Ravel some of the most performed pages of the repertoire: Daphnis et Chloé, La Valse, the Boléro and the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand.