Ravel is sometimes seen as an unemotional, cold man. But much his music says otherwise to his admirers. His life was not very eventful; we can have a view of this composer through the people with whom he was very close: friends who spent time with him or who have corresponded by letter and family, which was very small.  Around 1902, when Ravel was only twenty year old, he joined an avant-garde group of artists, musicians, writers and painters, called the Apaches. One day, the group met in a café on the Rue de Rome, and he shouted: “Attention les apaches”. They cheerfully adopted the nickname. Ravel suggested to choose the theme of Borodin’s 2nd Symphony as their first choice, as their “signature”.  Apaches used to meet regularly on Saturdays at home at Paul Sordes in the Montmartre Rue Dulong, or “chez” Tristan Klingsor in avenue du Parc Montsouris. Laterthey chooses the studio of Maurice Delage, rue de Civry in Auteil. Many group members with a passsion for classical music have become best friends for longtime for Ravel.
Ravel was a very good friend of many leading composers of his time, but his very close friends were only a few. Composers such as Manuel de Falla, Gabriel Fauré, Igor Stravinsky, Ralph Vaughan-Williams and the composers of the “Groupe des Six”, sometimes more than simple colleagues. Ravel also developed close relations with some of the performers of his works, particularly with the women. Ravel wrote sincere dedication on a number of his classical music creations, such as “Le Tombeau de Couperin” and “Miroirs”.
Ravel’s piano compositions, such as “Les Jeux d’eau”, “Miroirs” and “Gaspard de la nuit”, demand a considerable virtuosity from the performer and also from the orchestra. We can say the same about his “Daphnis et Chloé”( composed for the Ballets Russes)  and his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”, where he used a large scale of sounds and highly effective music instruments. Ravel is probably best known for his orchestral work, the Bolero (1928), which he considered minor, and once described as “a piece for orchestra without music.”  Ravel decided to write a new piece based on the Spanish dance called bolero for the dancer Ida Rubinstein. The Bolero was a huge success at the Paris Opera with the great choreography by Bronislava Nijinska.