Ravel Studies

Demonstrating the vibrant nature of current research on Maurice Ravel one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century French music a team of distinguished international scholars provides new interdisciplinary perspectives and insights. Through historical critical and analytical means the volume reveals the symbiotic relationships between Ravel''s music and aesthetic cultural literary gender performance-based and medical studies. While the chapters progress from French aesthetic-literary association including Colette and Proust to more extended disciplinary couplings with American history jazz dance and neurology the organization is relatively free to enable other thematic links to emerge. The volume presents a refreshing variety of scholarly approaches to Ravel and his music set within broad contexts and current musicological debates. In a Ravelian spirit it is intended that the essays will serve collectively as a model for expanding the agendas of other composer-based studies.