Top 5 Favorite Ravel Works

[springrite]

Duo for Violin and Cello

Glad someone mentioned this wonderful work!

[Mirror Image]

Piano Trio.  I can think of few works as beautiful and as perfect.
Ma Mere L'Oye ballet
Daphnis et Chloe
Piano Music (cheating, but the solo piano music fits on 2 discs).  Favorites are Gaspard, Sonatine, Valses, and Tombeau.
Scheherazade
String Quartet
Duo for Violin and Cello

You're cheating in this list and in your Janacek list. You picked 7 works and you can only choose 5.

[springrite]

You're cheating in this list and in your Janacek list. You picked 7 works and you can only choose 5.

Can't fault the consistency though.

[Mirror Image]

Can't fault the consistency though.

That's certainly true.

[Daverz]

You're cheating in this list and in your Janacek list. You picked 7 works and you can only choose 5.

Yup.  I'm such a bastard!  And actually I listed 10 works by name.  Bwahahahaha!

[Mirror Image]

Yup.  I'm such a bastard!  And actually I listed 10 works by name.  Bwahahahaha!

[Ken B]

Yup.  I'm such a bastard!  And actually I listed 10 works by name.  Bwahahahaha!

And I bet you change the list daily too!

[Madiel]

Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
Miroirs
Gaspard de la Nuit


I'm not 100% certain what would occupy the other places. Some of the chamber works, I don't feel I'm familiar enough with yet to know how I'd rank them (and I don't know the Introduction and Allegro at all, which many people rank very highly indeed).

But hey, one of my favourite concertos and 2 of the greatest piano suites ever written isn't a bad start. And it's not as if there aren't plenty of fine works close on the heels of these ones.

[San Antone]

Glad someone mentioned this wonderful work!

I had done so, too.

Ma mère l'oye (either for solo piano or orchestrated)
Trois poemes de Stephane Mallarme
Piano trio in A Minor
Piano Concerto in G
Sonata for Violin and Cello

[Mr Bloom]

I had done so, too.

So did I. How unfair.

[Luke]

Me too. And I said it first. *sniff*

[Christo]

Introduction and Allegro for Flute, Clarinet, Harp, and String Quartet (surprised that no one picked this yet!)

Actually, this no-one did: 

Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet, and string quartet (1905)

[vandermolen]

Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
Daphnis and Chloe
Introduction and Allegro or Gaspard de la Nuit.
Ma Mere L'Oye (orch)
Bolero 

[Christo]

Bolero 

Fabulous piece, no reason for snobbishness. You're not the only one to like it:

And finally, "Seventeen minutes of orchestra without any music."

Like that one too. 

+1

EDIT:

Hey! I picked Bolero too! *grumbles*

Fixed:

Bolero

Edit - even one more:

Count me in... I've always liked it, ever since first time I heard it, over twenty years ago now I'm guessing.

[(poco) Sforzando]

L'Enfant et les Sortilèges
Concerto in G
Gaspard de la Nuit
Scheherazade
Bolero

[TheGSMoeller]

Fabulous piece, no reason for snobbishness. You're not the only one to like it:

Count me in...

Bolero

I've always liked it, ever since first time I heard it, over twenty years ago now I'm guessing.

[Ken B]

Hey! I picked Bolero too!
*grumbles*

[TheGSMoeller]

Has Bolero become The Spice Girls of classical music? It's cool to not like it, but somehow it sells millions of records and sells out concert halls.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Bolero has been criticized for monotony, and Ravel himself thought it exhibited "no form, properly speaking, no development, no or almost no modulation." But though the last of these are true, the work in fact demonstrates a perfect understanding of a classical double-variation form, in this case in which the variations are confined primarily to changes in orchestral timbre, but they preserve the momentum found in the classical variation form where the phrase structure of the theme (in this case two themes) remains constant. Typically a classical variation structure will conclude with some departure from the momentum of maintaining this constant phrase structure (such as a concluding fugue), and here Ravel breaks the momentum by the sudden modulation from C major to E. The piece also succeeds because, against the monotony of the snare-drum figure, both the main and secondary themes exhibit considerable melodic and rhythmic asymmetry, and very little internal repetition. See for instance how the placement of the G in measures 3 and 4 offsets the stability of the basic 3/4 rhythm:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bol%C3%A9ro_(Ravel)

(Ravel's approach in Bolero is very different from that of Britten in the YPG, where the variations do not preserve the phrase structure of the main theme, but instead each develops various motifs from the theme in what amounts to a set of free fantasias on it. At the same time, as a gesture to the classical method, Britten concludes his piece with a nifty little fugue.)

[Madiel]

Yep, all of that. Saying that Bolero is monotonous misses the fact that the "monotony" actually consists of a couple of first-class melodies that have enormous interest in and of themselves.