Naxos’ Easy-Listening Piano Classics presents a delightful range of music from Baroque masterpieces to beautiful works of the Classic and Romantic eras, specially selected for discerning listeners to enjoy at home or work, while relaxing, entertaining or travelling.

DEBUSSY AND RAVEL

Like Haydn and Mozart or Bruckner and Mahler, Debussy and Ravel are frequently paired, although the differences between them are at least as striking as the similarities. The senior of the two, Claude Debussy (1862–1918), was more prolific and perhaps more innovative than Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), though this does not diminish the latter’s achievement. While both composers are often referred to as ‘Impressionists’, this needs to be qualified: Debussy objected to this characterisation, writing in 1908 ‘I am trying to do “something different”—an effect of reality…what the imbeciles call &ldqu