Maurice Ravel quotes

Maurice Ravel was a French composer and pianist renowned for his impressionist style and masterful orchestration. His works, such as "Boléro" and "Daphnis et Chloé," are celebrated for their rich textures and innovative harmonies. He played a key role in shaping 20th-century classical music with his distinctive sound. Here are 13 of his quotes:

Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.

Maurice 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.

Maurice Ravel

Remember that I wrote a pavane for a dead princess, and not a dead pavane for a princess!

Maurice Ravel

I have the intention to dedicate Le Gibet to you. It is not because I think you merit a rope to hang yourself, but because it is the least difficult of the three pieces.

Maurice Ravel

Then M. Ravel discussed another idea. That was that in these days of cacophony it might be quite an original idea for the orchestra to start, say, in C major, and then, through a series of discords the instruments should divide, some going up a semitone at every three or four bars, while others went down in the same way, eventually ending in perfect harmony in C major two octaves apart. He said: 'It is just an idea but it might be rather fun working it out and certainly a novel way of resolving harmony from discord.

Maurice Ravel

But do these people never come up with the idea that I might be artificial by nature?

Maurice Ravel

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

Maurice Ravel

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

Maurice Ravel

I begin by considering an effect.

Maurice Ravel

You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.

Maurice Ravel

My intention here is to make it clear that not a single cell of my composition, here in regard to The Raven, is found by chance or intuition, that the composition moved towards perfection with the precision and inevitability of a mathematical equation.

Maurice Ravel