The pianoforte music of Maurice Ravel is in many ways similar to that of his great contemporary. His conception of harmony is, like Debussy’s, expanded. Sevenths and ninths are used as consonances in his music as well; and consequently one finds there the free use of the sustaining pedal, the playing with after-sounds and overtones. His works are not so numerous. The most representative are the _Miroirs_, containing five pieces: _Noctuelles_, _Oiseaux tristes_, _Une barque sur l’océan_, _Alborado del gracioso_ and _La vallée des cloches_; and a recent set, _Gaspard de la nuit_, containing _Ondine_, _Scarbo_, and _Le Gibet_, three poems for the piano after Aloysius Bertrand. A set of _Valses nobles et sentimentales_ are only moderately interesting on account of the harmonies. The rhythms are not unusually varied, and the treatment of the pianoforte is relatively simple. There is a well-known _Pavane pour une infante défunte_ of great charm, and a concert piece of great brilliance called _Jeux d’eau_. Though Ravel, like Debussy, makes use of a misty background, his music is on the whole more brilliant and more clear-cut. One is likelier to find in it passages that are sensational as well as effective. His effects, too, are more broadly planned, more salient and less suggestive. The _Jeux d’eau_ is a very good example, with its regular progressions and unvaried style, its sustained use of high registers rather than an occasional flash into them, its repetitions of rather conventional figures. [Illustration] Famous Pianists. From top left to bottom right: Ferruccio Busoni, Ignace Paderewski, Ossip Gabrilowitch, Eugen d’Albert.