Ravel's Miroirs: text and context

Abstract

Abstract This research report examines Maurice Ravel’s piano pieces, Miroirs (1905), as texts. These five piano pieces draw on a wide range of sources and conventions across nearly two centuries and yet are utterly integrated in their expression. In the Miroirs, Ravel exhibits a fascinating meshing of historical and contemporary influences that range from Mozart to Chabrier and Fauré. The pieces are also interestingly and very personally related to their cultural and social contexts, in that each individual piece was dedicated to a member of the Apaches, a group of young artists and intellectuals residing in Paris of whom Ravel was himself one. The research examines the significance of the Miroirs both within Ravel’s own and the broader twentieth-century repertoire.