Episode Details

Maurice Ravel composed music the way a Swiss watchmaker assembles a timepiece — every gear placed with microscopic precision, every surface polished until it gleamed. He spent years on single compositions, refusing to release anything that fell short of mechanical perfection. The result was some of the most beautiful orchestral music of the twentieth century.

This episode traces Ravel from his Basque childhood through his rivalry with Debussy, his service as an ambulance driver in World War I, and the neurological disease that silenced him years before his death.

• Bolero, which he dismissed as an orchestration exercise, became his most famous composition
• He was rejected for the Prix de Rome five times, sparking a public scandal in French music
• He served as an ambulance driver during World War I despite being well past military age
• A progressive neurological disease robbed him of the ability to compose or write during his final years