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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

‘...in meticulous, elegant prose ... it packs a great deal of thought and information into a relatively short space, and often encourages us to think afresh about its subject.’ @reaktionbooks.bsky.social www.gramophone.co.uk/review/artic...

gramophone.co.uk

Review - Maurice Ravel (by Emily Kilpatrick)

‘This is a portrait of a man who remained aloof and apart from a musical establishment that treated him warily almost from the beginning’

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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

Nice review in Gramophone of my #Ravel biography: ‘Affecting in her examination of Ravel’s life – her account of his final illness is astonishingly moving – Kilpatrick’s discussions of the music are, in contrast, succinct, cool and finely judged…’

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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

'We have to let him know we're here': a little essay on why writing Ravel's biography felt like a homecoming. emilykilpatrick.substack.com/p/we-have-to...

emilykilpatrick.substack.com

'We have to let him know we're here': on writing a life for Maurice Ravel

This book began twenty-one years and half my life ago.

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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

At Le Belvédère Ravel wasn’t an icon but a presence, fallible, exasperating and comical; spoken of not just with reverence but with affection, with humour and the occasional eyeroll. www.youtube.com/watch?v=j93G...

youtube.com

Maurice Ravel - 3 brief silent films

YouTube video by caramelorb

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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

59. Ravel liked to have his own way, his younger brother noted, but he wanted others to agree with him in considering it the best way – ‘otherwise his pleasure was spoiled’. #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

6. To another friend, Ravel mourned, ‘I’ve written nothing, I’ll leave nothing, I’ve said nothing of what I wanted to express!’ #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

54. In Texas, Ravel's 1928 tour produced the memorable headline ‘Reporters Mourn Lack of French as Maurice Ravel Talks about Jazz and US in Native Tongue’. #Ravel150

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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

53. From the US Ravel kept a close eye on things at home, sending a letter to his brother, from somewhere along the Mississippi, to ask whether he’d done anything about getting a new vacuum cleaner for Montfort. #Ravel150

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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

52. A standing ovation from a 3000-strong crowd after a Boston Symphony performance moved Ravel to tears: ‘This would never happen to me in Europe’. #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

50. His first housekeeper drank too much and ran off with his favourite umbrella. Ravel was VERY upset about this. #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

45. Ravel spent much of the summer of 1920 helping nurse a friend dying of cancer. The first movement of the Duo for Violin and Cello was sketched between night watches. #Ravel150

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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

44. Serge #Diaghilev rejected La Valse for his Ballets russes, telling him ‘Ravel, it’s a masterpiece… but it’s not a ballet. It’s the portrait of a ballet… It’s the painting of a ballet.’ #Ravel150

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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

43. Ravel dispatched the manuscript of La Valse to his publishers with the cheery note ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t get lost, I haven’t kept a draft’. #Ravel150

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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

42. Trying to complete La Valse, Ravel travelled to a friend’s house in the Rhône-Alpes, writing, ‘This has got to work: not being able to travel to Vienna, I’ve installed myself close to…Vals!’ #Ravel150

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Emily Kilpatrick @ekilpatrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

41. Ravel loved mechanical metaphors: new pieces might be ‘en panne’ (broken down); hard at work, he writes ‘Je turbine’. After the War, ‘The magneto’s worn out’; but by the end of 1919 ‘I’ve got La Valse started up at last and I’m in 4th gear!’ #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

39. After the war #Ravel never drove a vehicle again, haunted by the visceral terror of his war service. #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

37. So he spent months driving a truck around Verdun , and left stunning descriptions of the abandoned town: ‘I will doubtless see more horrifying, more repugnant sights; I do not think I will ever experience anything as profound and strange as this sort of mute terror.’

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