My journey with Maurice Ravel's "Jeux d'eau."  The music scared me. I tried to avoid it. But I had ordered it a while ago, before plunging into Claude Debussy's "The Children's Corner Suite," before Josef Hadyn's "Variations in f minor," and way before C. Debussy's "Arabesque." I had completely forgotten about it, in fact, but there it was staring at me as was looking around for something else one day. 
The sound intoxicated me, even as I was learning it -  a slow slow process.  I couldn't get enough of the particular sound of M. Ravel.  I understood this strange, captivating dissonance.  It was my own sound I was hearing.  And I loved it.
To play this piece with dexterity became my utmost goal, and I quickly understood it was necessary to let go of interior conflict to master "Jeaux d'eau." So the speed came spontaneously once the personal work had begun.  My attention moved to mastering the transitions between phrases, teaching my hands where they needed to go.  Next came phrasing and color with the sustain pedal. 
This morning's work, I would say, presented itself.  Rhythmn, consistency.  I allowed myself to play "Jeaux d'eau" slowly, evoking the stillness and clarity and play of light on the surface of water in the magical early morning light of day.  Eddies and swells arise during the piece, as well as rapid waterfalls and storms. But the piece closes with a painfully sweet poignancy of a sunset over a beach, signaling to a child the end of a day's pleasures. Slowed-down music of a carousel is evoked as "Jeaux d'eau" closes, but not before one last play of water, rapid, organic, unstoppable. 
Can you tell I love this work? This slow rythmn is mine. I own it. And it is beautiful.