Pavane pour une infante défunte little princess might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court". The pavane was a slow processional dance that enjoyed great popularity in the courts of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This antique miniature is not meant to pay tribute to any particular princess from history, but rather expresses a nostalgic enthusiasm for Spanish customs and sensibilities, which Ravel shared with many of his contemporaries (most notably Debussy and Albéniz) and which is evident in some of his other works such as the "Rapsodie espagnole" and the "Boléro". Ravel dedicated the "Pavane" to his patron, the Princesse
Polonaise include Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Ferdinand Ries, Michał Kleofas Ogiński, Karol Kurpiński, Józef Elsner, Niccolò Paganini, Maria Agata Szymanowska, Franz Schubert, Vincenzo Bellini, Louis Spohr, Carl Maria von Weber, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Henryk Wieniawski, David Popper, Wojciech Kilar, Johann Kaspar Mertz, Moritz Moszkowski, Friedrich Baumfelder, Ferdinando Carulli, Mauro Giuliani, Modest Mussorgsky, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Alexander Scriabin. Another more recent prolific polonaise composer was the American Edward Alexander MacDowell. John Philip Sousa wrote the "Presidential Polonaise", intended to keep visitors moving briskly