Ravel’s music is different. The delicate part-writing, as intricately wrought as clock-work ("a Swiss watch-maker" is how Stravinsky described Ravel) actually creates its own emotional climate. Nostalgia, and a delicious sense of entering a safe fantasy-world, are at the root of it. It could be said Ravel never grew up emotionally. That isn’t to say he was a naif, like his friend Satie. He could handle adult company perfectly well, but his dandified aristocratic appearance and dry humour kept most people at bay, apart from a few friends. As for erotic relationships – gay or straight – there’s almost no trace. In the end Ravel seems to have preferred the company of children, or the mechanical birds and music-boxes he kept in his house in the country.