I begin by considering an effect.
I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I tore it out of me by pieces.
Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.
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.
Why become a second-rate Ravel when you're already a first-rate Gershwin?
We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art