Maurice Ravel, « correspondence » in major dramas – Liberation

The music lovers celebrate this month the 150th anniversary of the birth of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Expo to the Philharmonie de Paris, concerts of the new Apaches at Châtelet… To the avalanche of tributes in honor of the composer is added an unexpected gift: some 200 unpublished epistolary published in a new edition of his Correspondence. Written and interviews. Patiently gathered for more than twenty-five years by the musicographer Manuel Cornejo, president of the association of friends of Maurice Ravel, the documents spread over forty-two years and 2,934 pages-two volumes as heavy as cobblestones-offer, with their annexes, a sublimit of possibilities to try to unravel the mystery of the Dandy of Monfort-l’amaury.

The project of an integral reading of the book is dementia. It would be to graft itself as close as possible to the daily life of Ravel, the nearest minute, while never succeeding. Many documents are still missing, certain collections of letters, notably with Ida Rubinstein (dedicatee Bolero) or Musical editions Durand, as explained by Manuel Cornejo to Release, not being accessible or lost. We therefore chose to explore two traumatic moments of the life of the composer, far from his works, to try to discover the features of the man who engages hot, not the art artist