Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Migrated podcast image for: Composer Of The Week

Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Composer of the Week: Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Episode 3: Calm Before the Storm

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Episode 3

Episode 3: Calm Before the Storm

Calm Before the Storm

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), Calm Before the Storm

Donald Macleod focuses on Ravel's happy years prior to the First World War.

Donald Macleod focuses on Ravel's happy years prior to the First World War. His idyll was to be shattered by the death of his father and the outbreak of war. Including Piano Trio.

Donald Macleod explores Ravel's happy years prior to the First World War. His idyll was to be shattered by the death of his father and the outbreak of war.

Ravel is a musical genius ... with an image problem. Thanks to the efforts of Torvill and Dean (not to mention Bo Derek and Dudley Moore), his is a place in popular culture unmatched by any composer of the 20th century. And all for a piece, Boléro, that he joked to friends "had no music in it" ... Compared to his fellow musical "impressionist" Debussy, Ravel's music is sometimes unfairly characterised as rather shallow - all brilliant artifice and sumptuous detail, but no heart. That reputation's not helped by the man himself. Famously private, Ravel projected the image of a rarefied dandy, whilst keeping his own private emotional world a tightly-kept secret. This week, Donald Macleod seeks to break through the shell of this musical enigma to discover the vast depths beneath.

As the fallout from the scandalous "Ravel Affair" faded, Ravel settled into a comfortable life dividing his time between professional life in Paris and summers in his Basque homeland, where he dreamed of composing a Basque musical fantasy - sadly never realised. Donald Macleod explores Ravel's often neglected support for musical modernism, showcasing his daring Three Poems of Stéphane Mallarmé - a work with the double misfortune of being composed in the same year as Stravinsky's iconic "Rite of Spring", and a work with the exact same title by his rival Claude Debussy.

Jeff Beck / Jimmy Page: Beck's Boléro

Scarbo (Gaspard de la Nuit), arr. Marius Constant
Orchestra Nationale de Lyon
Leonard Slatkin

Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé
Janet Baker, mezzo
Melos Ensemble

Piano Trio
Trio Wanderer.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod explores the enigmatic personality and vibrant music of Maurice Ravel

Donald Macleod explores the enigmatic personality and richly vibrant music of Maurice Ravel, seeking to discover the vast depths beneath the composer's awkward exterior

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Composer of the Week

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Episode 3: Calm Before the Storm

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3