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Happy birthday, Maurice Ravel!

Maurice Ravel, seated at a piano, with a birthday hat
Photo by Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images
Maurice Ravel

The great French composer Maurice Ravel turns 142 today, and it seems like he's popping up everywhere, both in the news and in the concert hall.

To help you celebrate, we've gathered these fun tidbits bits from around the web:

  1. Ravel playing piano, in footage from a 1928 silent film:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SjD1m4fQUY
  2. Bolero, from the point of view of a viola:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOMp6Z9af5E
  3. A tour of Ravel's house, "Le Belvedère:"
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBLXNf84_AQ
  4. Radiolab's story on "obsession, creativity, and a strange symmetry between a biologist and a composer that revolves around one famously repetitive piece of music," Unraveling Bolero.
  5. The Guardian's report on the Ravel Museum's surprising closure earlier this year...
  6. ...and from their archives, a review of a concert Ravel gave in 1928.

Want even more Ravel? Listen to his music, as heard on recent Boston Symphony Orchestra broadcasts, here.

Kendall Todd is the Content Manager for GBH Music.