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:

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

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

This piece is famous for its incredible difficulty; Ravel intended it to be more difficult than Balakirev's Islamey. Ondine is reminiscent of the tinkling of the water in a stream, beautifully woven with cascades. In Le gibet, a B flat octave is played 153 times, to signify the tolling bell 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 composer commented on this piece: "I wanted to make a caricature of romanticism. Perhaps it got the better of me."

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

External Links

• Poem Translations, Musical Background
• Piano Society.com — Ravel — Gaspard de la nuit — A free recording of "Ondine" in MP3 format.
• ClassicalCat.com, Gaspard de la nuit — Several complete MP3 recordings available of the work.