Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was a man of contradictions: an avowed atheist and political progressive, he nevertheless set to music the poetry of the aristocrat and Nazi collaborator Paul Morand in his song cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée. In the cycle’s second song, “Chanson épique,” Don Quixote petitions Our Lord to bless Dulcinea:
It’s a beautiful prayer from a professed nonbeliever. And it opens the door to Ravel’s contradictory world — one not defined by the contours of a narrow ideology, but rather by an almost spiritual devotion to craft.
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