Maurice ravel’s dementia: The silence of a genius

Abstract

Maurice Ravel is one of the most important French musicians. In the last years of his life, Ravel was victim of a dementia of uncertain etiology that caused aphasia, apraxia, agraphia and amusia. The artistic brain of the author of eternal musical compositions was progressively silenced due to his neurodegenerative disease. On the 90th anniversary of Boléro, this historical note revisits Ravel’s case and discusses the relationship of his dementia to his artistic production. It illustrates the intimacy that can exist between art, music, creativity, and neurology.