Gaspard de la nuit

Gaspard de la Nuit: Trois Poèmes pour Piano d'apres Aloysius Bertrand is a piece for solo piano by Maurice Ravel. It has three movements, each based on a poem by Aloysius Bertrand. The work was premiered on January 9, 1909 in Paris by Ricardo Viñes.

The piece is famous for its incredible difficulty, partly due to the fact that Ravel intended the Scarbo movement to be more difficult than Balakirev's Islamey. Because of its technical difficulty and profound musical structure, it is popularly considered to be one of the most difficult solo piano pieces in the standard repertoire.

The manuscript currently resides in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of The University of Texas at Austin.

Etymology

The name Gaspard is derived from its original Persian form, denoting the man in charge of the royal treasures: "Gaspard of the Night or the treasurer of the night thus creates allusions to someone in charge of all that is jewel-like, dark, mysterious, perhaps even morose."^[2]

Structure

Excerpt from Ondine, the first movement. Some areas are so complex, Ravel notates parts of it on three staves.

1. Ondine is an oneiric tale of a water fairy singing to seduce the observer and accompany her to visit her kingdom deep at the bottom of the lake in the triangle of water, fire and earth. It is reminiscent of the tinkling of the water in a stream, woven with cascades. This movement was intended to describe the water sprite in Aloysius Bertrand's poem, attempting to lure men into her domain. This piece contains technical problems for the right hand such as wild cadenza figures, fast repetition of three-note chords, rapid chromatic runs and melodies of intervals played with one hand.
2. Le Gibet, an eerie work in which the observer wonders at the scene he's witnessing. "It is a bell tinting at the walls of a city under the horizon and the carcass of a hanged man reddened by the setting sun". This piece contains over 20 different styles and textures in terms of melody, however, the repeating B-flats (played 153 times) must remain in the same style, that is like sad tolling bells for a man being lynched in the distance.
3. Scarbo, a small fiend — half goblin, half ghost — making pirouettes, disappearing and scaring a person in his home. Scarbo could stand for "scarabée", a beetle. Its uneven flight, hitting and scratching against the panels of the bed, casting a growing shadow under the moonlight creates a nightmarish scene for the observer lying in his bed. With its repeated notes and two terrifying climaxes, this movement is the high-point of technical difficulty of the three movements. It gives an impression of the fiendish mischief committed by a ghostly imp during the night, fading in and out of vision while changing forms, which is portrayed in the difficult crescendos. The technical difficulties of the piece are wildly arpeggiated figures for both hands, frequent crossing of hands at large intervals, and fast moving melody lines made of chords.

Notes

See also

Vlado Perlemuter

External links

• Original text by Louis Bertrand (in French)
• Poem Translations, Musical Background
• Piano Society.com — Ravel — Gaspard de la nuit — Includes free recordings of "Ondine" and "Scarbo" in MP3 format.
• Gaspard de la nuit: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project.