A biopic of Maurice Ravel, along with the efforts of his fans, is giving new life to the beloved home of the French composer after decades of neglect and squabbling among its guardians.
Le Belvédère, a narrow hillside house in Montfort L’Amaury, on the edge of Rambouillet forest near Paris, has been a jealously guarded museum devoted to Ravel since the 1960s but it has benefited from none of the millions of royalties brought in by his Boléro, one of the world’s most performed works.
In 2016 Le Figaro said the house where Ravel spent the last 16 years of his life and died in 1937 had been the victim of “organised pillaging” by heirs and others since 1960.
With curtains perishing, ceilings cracking
