Does it not occur to people that I might be artificial by nature?
Remember that I wrote a pavane for a dead princess, and not a dead pavane for a princess!
You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.
Why become a second-rate Ravel when you're already a first-rate Gershwin?
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.