Maurice Ravel - Piano Works (Tanja Hotz)

Information

Composer: Maurice Ravel

• Pavane pour une infante défunte, M. 19
• Gaspard de la nuit, M. 55
• Jeux d'eau, M. 30
• Miroirs, M. 43

Tanja Hotz, piano

Date: 2025

Label: Claves Records

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Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), though often grouped with Debussy as an Impressionist, resisted that label. Born to a Swiss father and Basque mother, his cosmopolitan heritage shaped a unique voice rooted in Parisian training yet free from strict French identity. His early career at the Paris Conservatoire was fraught, culminating in scandal after repeated Prix de Rome failures. Works like Pavane pour une infante défunte and Jeux d’eau revealed his refined harmonic language and fascination with color and motion. The suite Miroirs (1904–05) and Gaspard de la nuit (1908) exemplify his technical mastery and vivid imagery, merging formal discipline with evocative fantasy. Gaspard especially crowned his piano output—its virtuosic demands and expressive depth marking a pinnacle before Ravel’s later turn to orchestral composition.

Swiss-Icelandic pianist and composer Tanja Hotz was born in Haifa, Israel, and raised in Zug, Switzerland. Beginning piano studies with her mother, she later trained under Madeleine Hoppe-Nussbaumer and pursued multiple instruments alongside composition. A prizewinner in the Swiss Youth Music Competition, she studied piano with Adrian Oetiker in Basel, composition with Georg Friedrich Haas, and improvisation with Rudolf Lutz, earning her bachelor’s with distinction in 2014. She completed advanced studies in Munich and Vienna with Lilya Zilberstein and Martin Lichtfuss. Also active as a visual artist, Hotz integrates music, poetry, and painting in her interdisciplinary projects. Since 2020, she has taught piano at the Basel Academy of Music.

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