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Emily Kilpatrick

@ekilpatrick.bsky.social
48 followers 31 following 90 posts

Musician, scholar, mother, expat; associate professor @ Royal Academy of Music. Books: boydellandbrewer.com/9781648250545/… reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/maurice-ra…

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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Claude was funny, earthy, generous, passionately devoted to Ravel, passionately knowledgeable. If this book has one aim, it is that it might make this most entrancing, most enigmatic of composers feel alive for its readers, as Claude brought him to life for me.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
As part of the renovations the door to the tiny steep staircase to the garden needed replacing, so Claude took the old one home with her, mounted it on her wall and behind it painted a trompe d’oeïl image of the descending stair. She was certain Ravel would have approved of this.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
And every day, I worked alongside the marvellous curator Claude Moreau. Claude changed my life. ‘Bonjour petit Maurice!’, she would call every morning as she unlocked the doors and opened the shutters (‘I have to let him know we’re here’).
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
That summer, I learned Miroirs at #Ravel's piano, I sat on his balcony and talked to people – visitors, and some older residents who could just remember calling ‘Bonjour Monsieur Ravel!’ when they saw him working in his garden.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
And this adorable and very badly photographed postcard: 'Monsieur Ravel', it says, 'Merci mon grand ami / Gisele'. I still have my own letter from Gisele, the daughter of Ravel's house editor: she wrote of her memories of Ravel playing with her, and his love for bloody steak.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
The door concealing the 'cagibi', the small storeroom.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
This sailing ship, afloat on a papier-mache sea
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
This rather beautiful joke teacup with a hole in it.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
I loved this tiny nightingale, which, when wound, sings with astonishing sweetness.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
So I spent the summer scrubbing #Ravel’s floors (and his toilet), putting his books back on his shelves, his knickknacks on his piano, his glasses on their stand in the music room.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
To my lasting astonishment, a fax came back, inviting me to spend a summer assisting in the renovations and then conducting some of the tours.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
I was fortunate beyond measure to spend a summer working here in 2004, having optimistically sent a fax (!) to the Fondation #Ravel asking if they had any work for a young Australian with high-school French.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
My #Ravel biography is published today by @reaktionbooks ! This book began here, more than twenty years ago: at Le Belvédère, Ravel’s home from 1921 until his death.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
I wrote a book! It's the story of the most entrancing of French composers, and it's published on Monday. I am informed by my nine-year-old that it is a 'very small book'. This means that it is also portable and inexpensive and is therefore perfect summer reading. Get to it (link follows...)!
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
62. Late in life Ravel reflected, ‘My object . . . is technical perfection. I can strive unceasingly towards this end, as I am certain that I will never attain it. The important thing is to get closer all the time.’ #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
61. Another friend, the poet Léon-Paul #Fargue, wrote simply that #Ravel was ‘a profoundly sensitive and good man’. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
60. Ravel’s friends loved him dearly: he ‘was the surest, most faithful and most profoundly affectionate of friends’, Roland-Manuel wrote. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
58. Ravel was a punishing and sometimes infuriating collaborator, but a generous one; a demanding friend, but intensely loyal; an exacting teacher, who laid down boundaries to watch his students discover how to breach them. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
57. Ravel had a dry, biting wit, and a lively sense of the ridiculous; he was funny, sharp and quick to anger. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
55. In his mid-50s Ravel was crippled by a rare form of early onset dementia. Weeping after a performance of Daphnis, he told a friend, ‘I’ll never write like that again, but it was good, all the same, it was good’. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
51. When Ravel toured America in 1928, his hosts were startled to discover that he had brought with him twenty pairs of pyjamas and fifty-seven ties. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
49. He was proud of his ‘faux Monticello’ painting; when his friend teased him ‘Ravel, it’s disgraceful of you to hang that horror on the wall!’ he responded indignantly, ‘But I know it’s fake and it amuses me’. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
48. Ravel loved to offer extravagant cocktails, which took forever to concoct in a special cupboard halfway down the winding kitchen stairs. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
47. At Montfort Ravel acquired a family of Siamese cats, which he loved to sketch. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
46. In 1921 #Ravel moved into Le Belvédère in #Montfort-l’Amaury. Years of renovations followed: ‘You’ll see I’m not hiding the attractions!’ he wrote of the pile of radiators in the garden and the brackish water. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
40. The six movements Ravel's 'Le tombeau de Couperin' are all dedicated to the memory of friends killed during the First World War. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
38. Ravel's truck, which he’d christened Adélaïde, then broke down, leaving him to play Robinson Crusoe (as he put it) in the woods for over a week. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
29. Ravel helped #Stravinsky book his hotel for the premiere of the Rite of Spring, ensuring he found one neighbouring his own apartment: ‘that way we can exchange courtesies from our balconies in our pyjamas!’ #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
22. In his first opera, L’heure espagnole, Ravel not only parodies Wagnerian leitmotifs, but uses ‘Tristan’ chords as a deliberate comic shorthand (‘thwarted desire!’). #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
17. Ravel’s father and brother invented a stunt vehicle called ‘La Tourbillon de la Mort’ (the Whirlwind of Death): when launched from a ramp, it was capable of turning a somersault metres in the air.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
7. Ravel's childhood friend, the pianist Ricardo Viñes, referred to him in his diary as the 'chevelu' (hairy boy); he and his equally long-haired brother Édouard are very easy to spot in this class photo from 1885.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
3. In January 1869 Pierre-Joseph drove a three-wheeled, steam-powered vehicle through the streets of Paris, right up to Saint-Denis; this was much further than his permit had allowed, but he’d bribed the police escort with hot grog at a nearby café first.
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
1. His parents met in Madrid, where his Basque mother was working as a dressmaker’s model. #Ravel150
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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Today is Maurice #Ravel’s 150th birthday! Here follows a thread of 62 Ravelian facts, quotes and stories, one for each year of his life. #Ravel150
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