Ravel: Complete Piano Works

Featuring

Konstantinos Destounis
Maurice Ravel

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Composer Biography

Ravel's mother, Marie Delouart, was from the Basque Country, and he strongly believed that inherited national characteristics influenced a composer's music.

Performer Biography

Konstantinos Destounis, the pianist on this album, is a Piano Professor at the Ionian University in Corfu, Greece, and has won several international piano competitions, including the Grand Prix Maria Callas.

Interpretation

Ravel held strong views on how his works should be played, stating, 'I do not want to be interpreted, I want to be played,' and his scores are filled with detailed performance indications.

Composition History

Le Tombeau de Couperin, completed in 1917, pays homage to both French composers of the 17th and 18th centuries and to Ravel's friends who died in World War I.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Maurice Ravel considered the process of composition to involve producing a piano work first, regardless of its final medium, viewing the piano as an 'orchestra in a box'.

Composition History

Ravel's Jeux d'eau, completed in 1901 and dedicated to Gabriel Fauré (his composition teacher), was considered by Ravel to be 'the origin of whatever pianistic innovation my works may be thought to contain'.

Composer Biography

Despite composing many technically demanding piano pieces, Ravel himself was not an outstanding pianist and rarely performed his more difficult works in public.