About the composer, Maurice Ravel

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Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937) was a French composer, pianist, and conductor. In the 1920's and 1930's Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer. 

 

Ravel was commissioned "to write a piece to display the expressive range of its double-action pedal harp" by the harp manufacturer, the Érard company. This was a response to the Pleyel company, their competitor, who commissioned Claude Debussy in 1904 to compose a work for harp and orchestra to showcase their new chromatic harp. Ravel completed his Introduction and Allegro for a septet of harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet in June 1905.

 

It is written in the key of G-flat major and it is the first piece to explore and exploit the full resources of the solo harp. The Introduction and the Allegro are played without a break. The Introduction, Très lent, takes only 26 bars. The Allegro in a modified sonata form begins with the solo harp expanding the material presented in the Introduction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ravel