Reading Music like a Book

I have loved listening to the music from Maurice Ravel's "Symphonie Choreographique" Daphnis and Chloe for a very long time now; its lush harmonies evoke the flourishing emotional lives of the two main characters of the ballet in an overwhelmingly beautiful fashion. The choral part is otherworldly, taking me back to ancient Greek times, imagining the incredibility of the world around me as viewed through the prism of life before immediate communication and near-immediate transportation. However, it wasn't until this evening that I had ever seen the score to Daphnis, an immense book of about 300 pages that details the large orchestral, choral, and dancing forces required to execute the piece fully as Ravel imagined it. I listened to about half of the piece while watching the score, at which point I was so overwhelmed by the piece that I was unable to continue. It is similar to the feeling that you get when you've learned a piece to perform it, so that you know the inner details and devices that the composer used to create the sound that goes out to the audience. Though I do believe that there is another entirely different allure to listening to music without and sheet music to distract you or control your reactions, I think that once you know a piece fairly well, reading the music along is the best way to deepen your enjoyment of the piece.