Maurice Ravel and Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Maurice Ravel was a man of this century, and we know more about him, including his medical care, than we do of many musicians of older times. The story of his later adult life is of particular interest, especially the rapid decline in his intellectual powers that occurred during his most productive years. We recognize this syndrome now as presenile dementia, or Alzheimer's disease. I believe that one may deduce from the available evidence that Ravel had this disease. Maurice Ravel was, arguably, the premier composer of the 20th century. Born in 1875 in the Pyrenees, he entered the Paris Conservatory in 1889 and was later a student of Faure. With Debussy, he led the French musical impressionist movement, characterized by fluidity of style within classical forms, a refutation of the ponderous romanticism of Richard Wagner. Ravel excelled at piano composition and especially at orchestration, often scoring works of others