Gaspard de la nuit

Gaspard de la nuit: Trois Poemes 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:

Related Topics:
Piano - Maurice Ravel - Aloysius Bertrand

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• Ondine, a tale of a water sprite and her kingdom.
• Le Gibet, a poem about a hanged man dying slowly, seeing his last sunrise.
• Scarbo, a small fiend, half goblin, half ghost, making pirouttes, disappearing and scaring a person and his home.

The piece is famous for its incredible difficulty, and for good reason; Ravel indeed intended it to be more difficult than Balakirev's '. For this reason, it is popularly rumoured to be the most difficult solo piano piece in the standard repertoire.

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The work was premiered on January 9, 1909 in Paris by Ricardo Viñes.

Related Topics:
January 9 - 1909 - Paris - Ricardo Viñes

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Ondine is reminiscent of the tinkling of the water in a stream, beautifully woven with cascades. This movement was intended to describe the water sprite in Bertrand's poem, attempting lure men into her domain. In Le gibet, a B flat octave is played 153 times, to signify the tolling bell for a hung man in the distance. Scarbo is probably the most difficult of the work, with its terrifying crescendos. Its incredible speeds make it seem almost impossible to play. The impressions present in this movement espouse themselves to the fiendish mischief committed by a ghost imp during the night, fading in and out of vision while changing forms, which is portrayed through those difficult crescendos.

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The composer commented on this piece: "I wanted to make a caricature of romanticism. Perhaps it got the better of me." http://anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=14121

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

Related Topics:
Manuscript - Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center - University of Texas at Austin - Austin, Texas

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