Maurice Ravel and the Basque Country
1875 | Born on March 7 in the “Ravel house” on the Quai de la Nivelle (as it was then called). Baptized March 13 in Ciboure church.
Childhood and education in Paris; Basque-speaking environment provided by mother, aunt and Gaudin friends. Basque is the only language he knows and speaks apart from French.
1899 | Pavane pour une infante défunte (probably inspired by the story of the Maison de l’Infante).
1902 | First stays in the Pays natal with his aunt Gachucha in the Iriart-Gaudin family.
1903 | Samantine pour piano on a Basque theme.
1911 | Basque imprint through extended stays in Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Ciboure.
Sketch of a Basque rhapsody for piano and orchestra: Zazpiak-bat.
1912 | Daphnis et Chloé: the work ends with a lively zortziko: the famous Bacchanale.
1913 | Trio for violin, cello and piano composed entirely in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, rue Sophie. Maurice Ravel befriends André Pavlowsky, Marguerite Long, Léon Blum and his relative by marriage Alfred Cortot, Gustave Samazeuilh, Ricardo Vines and the artists of the Ballets Russes.
1914 | the declaration of war takes him by surprise in Saint-Jean-de-Luz; he fails in his attempt to enlist in Bayonne.
August 29: end of Trio, as he writes to Jacques Durand. In September and October, he takes care of the wounded at the Casino de Saint-Jean-de-Luz, then chosen as a hospital. He begins composing Tombeau de Couperin (completed in 1916), partly dedicated to his friends in the Basque country: the Gaudin brothers, the painter Gabriel Deluc, Captain de Marliave, husband of Marguerite Long.
1917 | January 5, death of his mother. Maurice Ravel explains: “Now it’s a horrible despair!”
1920 | He refuses the Légion d’Honneur awarded to him by the Basses-Pyrénées deputy.
1921 | Ravel’s first post-war stay in Paris, where he reunited with his two friends, Marie Gaudin and Jeanne Courteault; he also met Ricardo Viñes, his brother the painter José Viñes, as well as Igor Stravinsky, Ramiro Arrue, Pierre Benoit, Arthur Rubinstein, Padre Donostia, and the Casadesus and Godebski families (whose children were the dedicatees of Ma mère l’Oye).
1926 | In response to Ravel’s international success, the Bar Basque offers a cocktail called “L’Heure espagnole”.
1927 | Maurice Ravel chooses the present 13 rue de Tourasse as his summer residence, which he keeps until his last stay.
1928 | In summer, he devotes himself to composing the famous Boléro for Ida Rubinstein’s ballets.
November of the same year: Maurice Ravel gives concerts in Bilbao and San Sebastian.
1929 | Composition of piano concertos: Concerto in G, based on the rhapsody Zapiak-bat (Basque concerto, according to Marguerite Long).
Concerto for the left hand (with a Basque theme).
In September, a Ravel festival is held in Biarritz and Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
1930 | August 24, tribute to Maurice Ravel: inauguration of the Quai Ravel, large pelota game, concert at the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz (with Ravel at the piano).
1932 | Concert in San Sebastian with orchestra. The first signs of his illness appear during the summer in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where he devotes himself to his last compositions: the three songs in the collection Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (the second, Chanson épique, is a slow-melodic zortziko).
1935 | He visits the Basque country several times: he is already very ill.
1937 | On December 20, at the age of 62, Maurice Ravel dies in Paris after trepanation. He is buried in Levallois-Perret.