Ukrainian classical pianist Anna Fedorova performs Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit: Trois poèmes pour piano d’après Aloysius Bertrand, a suite of pieces for solo piano composed in 1908. Recorded at Annecy Classic Festival in August 2014.

Anna Fedorova performs Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit: Trois poèmes pour piano d’après Aloysius Bertrand, a suite of pieces for solo piano composed in 1908

The premiere was in Paris on January 9, 1909. The soloist was Ricardo Viñes (5 February 1875 – 29 April 1943), the Spanish pianist. Viñes gave the premieres of works by Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Falla and Albéniz. He was the piano teacher of the French composer and pianist Francis Poulenc and the pianists Marcelle Meyer, Joaquín Nin-Culmell and Léo-Pol Morin.

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.

The work has three movements, each based on a poem or fantaisie from the collection Gaspard de la Nuit, fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot completed in 1836 by Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand, better known by his pen name Aloysius Bertrand (20 April 1807 — 29 April 1841), the French Romantic poet, playwright and journalist.

The piece is famous for its difficulty, partly because Ravel intended the Scarbo movement to be more difficult than Russian composer Mily Balakirev’s Islamey (subtitled Oriental Fantasy), Op. 18, a composition for piano written in September 1869. Because of its technical challenges and profound musical structure, Scarbo is considered one of the most difficult solo piano pieces in the standard repertoire.

Structure of Gaspard de la nuit

1. Ondine

Written in C-sharp major and based on the poem “Ondine”, an oneiric tale of the water nymph Undine singing to seduce the observer into visiting her kingdom deep at the bottom of a lake. It is reminiscent of Ravel’s early piano piece, the Jeux d’eau (1901), with the sounds of water falling and flowing, woven with cascades.

This piece contains technical challenges for the right hand such as the fast repetition of three-note chords in the opening accompaniment, the double-note passages beginning at bar 57, and the disjunct climactic movement of the hands beginning at bar 66.

French

(. . . . . . . . Je croyais entendre
Une vague harmonie enchanter mon sommeil,
Et près de moi s’épandre un murmure pareil
Aux chants entrecoupés d’une voix triste et tendre.

Ch. Brugnot. – Les deux Génies)

“Écoute! Écoute! C’est moi, c’est Ondine qui frôle de ces gouttes d’eau les losanges sonores de ta fenêtre illuminée par les mornes rayons de la lune; et voici, en robe de moire, la dame châtelaine qui contemple à son balcon la belle nuit étoilée et le beau lac endormi.

Chaque flot est un ondin qui nage dans le courant, chaque courant est un sentier qui serpente vers mon palais, et mon palais est bâti fluide, au fond du lac, dans le triangle du feu, de la terre et de l’air.

“Écoute! Écoute! Mon père bat l’eau coassante d’une branche d’aulne verte, et mes sœurs caressent de leurs bras d’écume les fraîches îles d’herbes, de nénuphars et de glaîeuls, ou se moquent du saule caduc et barbu qui pêche à la ligne.”

Sa chanson murmurée, elle me supplia de recevoir son anneau à mon doigt, pour être l’époux d’une Ondine, et de visiter avec elle son palais, pour être le roi des lacs.

Et comme je lui répondais que j’aimais une mortelle, boudeuse et dépitée, elle pleura quelques larmes, poussa un éclat de rire, et s’évanouit en giboulées qui ruisselèrent blanches le long de mes vitraux bleus.

English translation

(. . . . . . . . I thought I heard
A faint harmony that enchants my sleep.
And close to me radiates an identical murmur
Of songs interrupted by a sad and tender voice.

Ch. Brugnot – The two Spirits)

“Listen! Listen! It is I, it is Ondine who brushes drops of water on the resonant panes of your windows lit by the gloomy rays of the moon; and here in the gown of watered silk, the mistress of the chateau gazes from her balcony on the beautiful starry night and the beautiful sleeping lake.”

Each wave is a water sprite who swims in the stream, each stream is a footpath that winds towards my palace, and my palace is a fluid structure, at the bottom of the lake, in a triangle of fire, of earth and of air.

“Listen! Listen! My father whips the croaking water with a branch of a green alder tree, and my sisters caress with their arms of foam the cool islands of herbs, of water lilies, and of cornflowers, or laugh at the decrepit and bearded willow who fishes at the line.”

Her song murmured, she beseeched me to accept her ring on my finger, to be the husband of an Ondine, and to visit her in her palace and be king of the lakes.

And as I was replying to her that I loved a mortal, sullen and spiteful, she wept some tears, uttered a burst of laughter, and vanished in a shower that streamed white down the length of my blue stained glass windows.

2. Le Gibet

Written in E-flat minor and based on the poem “Le Gibet”, the observer is presented with a view of the desert, where the lone corpse of a hanged man on a gibbet stands out against the horizon, reddened by the setting sun; a bell tolls from inside the walls of a far-off city, creating the deathly atmosphere that surrounds the observer.

Throughout the entire piece is a B-flat octave ostinato, imitative of the tolling bell, that must remain distinctive and constant in tone as the notes cross over and dynamics change.

French

(Que vois-je remuer autour de ce Gibet?
– Faust.)

Ah! ce que j’entends, serait-ce la bise nocturne qui glapit, ou le pendu qui pousse un soupir sur la fourche patibulaire?

Serait-ce quelque grillon qui chante tapi dans la mousse et le lierre stérile dont par pitié se chausse le bois?

Serait-ce quelque mouche en chasse sonnant du cor autour de ces oreilles sourdes à la fanfare des hallali?

Serait-ce quelque escarbot qui cueille en son vol inégal un cheveu sanglant à son crâne chauve?

Ou bien serait-ce quelque araignée qui brode une demi-aune de mousseline pour cravate à ce col étranglé?

C’est la cloche qui tinte aux murs d’une ville sous l’horizon, et la carcasse d’un pendu que rougit le soleil couchant.

English translation

(What do I see stirring around that gibbet?
– Faust.)

Ah! that which I hear, was it the north wind that screeches in the night, or the hanged one who utters a sigh on the fork of the gibbet?

Was it some cricket who sings lurking in the moss and the sterile ivy, which out of pity covers the floor of the forest?

Was it some fly-in chase sounding the horn around those ears deaf to the fanfare of the halloos?

Was it some scarab beetle who gathers in his uneven flight a bloody hair from his bald skull?

Or then, was it some spider who embroiders a half-measure of muslin for a tie on this strangled neck?

It is the bell that tolls from the walls of a city, under the horizon, and the corpse of the hanged one that is reddened by the setting sun.

3. Scarbo

Written in G-sharp minor and based on the poem “Scarbo”, this movement depicts the nighttime mischief of a small fiend or goblin, making pirouettes, flitting in and out of the darkness, disappearing, and suddenly reappearing.

Its uneven flight, hitting and scratching against the walls, casting a growing shadow in the moonlight, creates a nightmarish scene for the observer lying in his bed. With its repeated notes and two terrifying climaxes, this is the high point in the technical difficulty of all three movements.

Technical challenges include repeated notes in both hands and double-note scales in major seconds in the right hand. Maurice Ravel reportedly said about Scarbo: “I wanted to write an orchestral transcription for the piano.”

French

(Il regarda sous le lit, dans la cheminée, dans le bahut;
– personne. Il ne put comprendre par où il s’était
introduit, par où il s’était évadé.

Hoffmann. – Contes nocturnes)

Oh! que de fois je l’ai entendu et vu, Scarbo, lorsqu’à minuit la lune brille dans le ciel comme un écu d’argent sur une bannière d’azur semée d’abeilles d’or!

Que de fois j’ai entendu bourdonner son rire dans l’ombre de mon alcôve, et grincer son ongle sur la soie des courtines de mon lit!

Que de fois je l’ai vu descendre du plancher, pirouetter sur un pied et rouler par la chambre comme le fuseau tombé de la quenouille d’une sorcière!

Le croyais-je alors évanoui? le nain grandissait entre la lune et moi comme le clocher d’une cathédrale gothique, un grelot d’or en branle à son bonnet pointu!

Mais bientôt son corps bleuissait, diaphane comme la cire d’une bougie, son visage blêmissait comme la cire d’un lumignon, – et soudain il s’éteignait.

English translation

(He looked under the bed, in the chimney,
in the cupboard; – nobody. He could not
understand how he got in, or how he escaped.

Hoffmann. – Nocturnal Tales)

Oh! how often have I heard and seen him, Scarbo, when at midnight the moon glitters in the sky like a silver shield on an azure banner strewn with golden bees?

How often have I heard his laughter buzz in the shadow of my alcove, and his fingernail grate on the silk of the curtains of my bed!

How often have I seen him alight on the floor, pirouette on a foot, and roll through the room like the spindle fallen from the wand of a sorceress!

Do I think he vanished then? the dwarf grows between the moon and me like the belfry of a gothic cathedral, a golden bell shakes on his pointed cap!

But soon his body becomes blue, translucent like the wax of a candle, his face pales like the wax of a candle end – and suddenly he is extinguished.

Sources

M. Özgür Nevres

Published by M. Özgür Nevres

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