Ravel

I have written but one masterpiece and that is
the Bolero.
Alas,
it contains no music!
( Ravel )

Ravel’s Bolero is the most insolent monstrosity ever perpetrated in the history of music.
( Edward Robinson )

I don't particularly care
about this 'sincerity.'
I try to make art.
I consider sincerity
to be the greatest defect in art,
because it excludes the possibility of choice.
Art is meant to correct nature's imperfections.
( Ravel )

Art is a beautiful lie.
The most interesting thing in art
is to try and overcome difficulties.
An artist cannot be sincere.
Falsehood, taken as the power of illusion,
is the only superiority of man over the animals;
and when it can claim to be art,
it is the only superiority of the artist over other men.
When one allows oneself spontaneity, one babbles and that's all.
In art, everything must be thought out.
( Ravel )

For me the greatest of all composers is Mozart.
Mozart is perfection: he is Grecian, whereas Beethoven is Roman.
The Greek is great, the Roman is Colossal.
I prefer the great.
( Ravel )

I firmly believe that joy is far more fertile than suffering.
( Ravel )

One of the greatest musicians in the world.
( Ravel, on de Falla )

I did my work slowly, drop by drop.
I tore it out of me by pieces.
( Ravel )

The essence of genius:
knowing how to work intelligently, and how to organize one’s ideas.
( Ravel )

Mozart is absolute beauty, perfect purity.
He is music incarnate.
( Ravel )

I begin by considering an effect.
( Ravel )

My intention is to make it clear that not a single cell of my composition
is found by chance or intuition,
that the composition moved toward perfection
with the precision and inevitability
of a mathematical equation.
( Ravel )

Another significant influence, other than Chabrier -
is from Satie, who had a notable effect on Debussy, on myself, and,
to tell the truth, on the majority of modern French composers.
( Ravel )

You might lose your spontaneity and,
instead of composing first-rate Gershwin,
end up with second-rate Ravel.
( Ravel, to Gershwin, citing the reason
he did not want to give him composition lessons )

You will never become a great composer
until you first become a great English composer.
( Ravel’s advice to a young Vaughan Williams )

Music must be emotional first and intellectual second.
( Ravel )

We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion
constitute the real content of a work of art.
( Ravel )

In the name of the gods of music, and of mine,
do not touch a single note of what you have written
in your [String] Quartet.
( Debussy to Ravel. Ravel obeyed )

I find beauty in all things;
the great and the small,
the humble and the powerful.
Beauty is what all modern artists
endeavor to develop
to the highest possible degree.
( Ravel )

For Debussy the musician and the man
I have had profound admiration,
but by nature I'm different from him.
I think I have always personally followed
a direction opposed to that
of the symbolism of Debussy.
( Ravel )

The only love affair
I have ever had was with music.
( Ravel )

There is an implied
melodic outline
in all vital music.
( Ravel )

All of life’s pleasures
consist of getting
a little closer
to perfection, and expressing life’s
mysterious thrill
a little better.
( Ravel )

JOSEPH - MAURICE
RAVEL
born: St. Germain-en-Laye, 22 August 1862
died: Paris, 25 March 1918, aged fifty-five