Victor le Masne Reimagines Ravel As DG Marks 20 Years of its Groundbreaking Recomposed Series
The Composer and Musical Director of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics bridges the contemporary and classical worlds in his 150th-anniversary homage to Ravel
Ravel Recomposed includes Le Masne’s versions of Boléro, Le jardin féerique, excerpts from the String Quartet and L’enfant et les sortilèges, and many more
Out on 21 November 2025, the album features guest performances from Christine and the Queens (lyrics and vocals), Julius Asal (piano) and Camille Thomas (cello)
“Ravel’s music is so modern, so universal. He can be very demanding, yet he is always generous and very warm – I tried to keep his warm feeling of humanity.” (Victor le Masne)
Ravel Recomposed presents Victor le Masne’s affectionate take on music by one of the greatest of all French composers. This 12-track album is the latest edition in Deutsche Grammophon’s pioneering Recomposed series, launched 20 years ago with Matthias Arfmann’s reworks of recordings by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Herbert von Karajan. Fresh from his monumental role as Composer and Musical Director of the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics, Grammy®-winning composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Le Masne brings vibrant colours and contemporary reflections to works he has loved since childhood. The album commemorates the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth with a fusion of musical styles and genres, embracing everything from classical and jazz to Le Masne’s distinctive brand of French Touch electro-dance music. It also features guest contributions from Christine and the Queens and DG artists Julius Asal and Camille Thomas.
Ravel Recomposed comes out in all formats on 21 November 2025, and the first digital single to be shared is Le jardin féerique on 29 August. This track inspired the album’s cover image, designed by Le Masne’s wife, Jill Caytan. “It’s about the idea of lush musical environments, and the idea of fading,” says the composer. “When you see a flower, there’s a timeless vibe, but also something impermanent. It reminds me of Le jardin féerique, the fairy garden. I asked my wife to make the image because I wanted something true, intimate and very close to my heart.”
Ravel has been close to Le Masne’s heart for most of his life. “I grew up in a family of musicians, and my father is a composer,” he explains. “When I was very young, he played me a lot of Ravel’s music. And my mother loved L’enfant et les sortilèges. It was a bit scary for me – the idea of furniture and animals turning against this naughty child. But I think the music went into me in a very strong way.”
At the age of sixteen, Le Masne was given a mix tape by his father which included Boléro and “Lever du jour” from Daphnis et Chloé. “I played the Ravel many, many times. And I started to understand his harmonies more clearly and enjoy them, not as a child, but as someone receiving his music.”
Years later, that influence fed into his work as Composer and Musical Director of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics. As well as collaborating with Lady Gaga, Aya Nakamura, Jean-Michel Jarre, Céline Dion and other global artists, he wrote scores for all four ceremonies, including reworks of several pieces by Ravel.
That led to an invitation from Christian Badzura, DG’s Vice President A&R New Repertoire, to add to the Recomposed series, which encourages composers to open a contemporary dialogue with music from the past. Previous editions include Matthew Herbert’s take on Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, Peter Gregson’s reworks of Bach’s Cello Suites and Max Richter’s 2012 and 2022 reinventions of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. “It helps to approach a project like this with intelligence, and with respect,” says Le Masne. “If you add in some fun as well, you can create something very interesting.”
“Victor brought an elegant balance of respect and reinvention to this project,” confirms Badzura. “By recomposing Ravel through his own musical voice, he’s created something that feels both timeless and contemporary. It’s a bold artistic statement that deepens the repertoire while opening it up to new audiences who simply have a thirst for great music.”
Having studied Ravel’s scores in depth and read all he could about the composer, Le Masne chose twelve pieces, then applied a multitude of genres and compositional techniques as he began to transform the originals. He plays piano, synths and percussion himself on the album, as well as conducting the musicians who joined him in the studio, and working closely with his three guest soloists.
Singer-songwriter-producer-choreographer Christine and the Queens, who worked with Le Masne at the 2024 Paralympics, improvised his own lyrics to Boléro – “I’ve never witnessed anything like that before. It’s quite amazing!” In Jeux d’eau, Le Masne added strings and winds to the solo part played by pianist Julius Asal, and in Chanson hébraïque, cellist Camille Thomas’s haunting line is accompanied by guitar, bass and kalimba.
Le Masne’s compositional inventiveness is evident throughout Ravel Recomposed, notably in “Lever du jour”, in which he turns one of Ravel’s finest melodies on its head. “I like the idea of a reversed world for the final track, because this album is about recomposing Ravel,” he says. “So I start with the reverse melody, then I go into the original harmonies but make it as a kind of loop. Then there’s the climax, done with a new instrumentation. And then you have maybe 30 seconds of climax before that too returns in reverse. The original is so well written that even in reverse it sounds amazing!”
August 2025
