When Maurice Ravel set out to compose his three-movement suite Gaspard de la Nuit, he remarked that his objective was to compose a piece of music more difficult than Mily Balakirev’s Islamey. To achieve this lavish technical display, Ravel looked to the florid style of Franz Liszt, which he had also done in his earlier Jeux d’eau of 1901. The suite was composed during 1908 and premiered on January 9, 1909 in Paris by Ricardo Viñes. Ravel based each of the suite’s movements on a poem by the French poet Aloysius Bertrand, whose work he had been introduced to by Viñes. Despite his early death and little success during his career, Bertrand became and inspiration for the early Symbolist poets, and his rather dark world echoed that of Edgar Allen Poe’s. The suite’s title, which Ravel borrowed from Bertrand, is an old French expression, derived from Persia, for the Devil.
In the second song, Le gibet, the tone turns darker still and macabre as the listener is presented with a desert scene and a man hanging limply from a gibbet. Bertrand’s disturbing and morose poem takes its cue from a legend also of devilish origin, namely, Faust, with the quote “Que vois-je remuer autour de ce Gibet?” (“What do I see stirring about that gibbet?”). The poet stands, like the listener, beholding the chilling scene and muses on the sound he hears—is it the grasshopper, the beetle, or the spider? It is none of these, but the far-off, eerie tolling of church bells. Ravel includes the bells in Le gibet with a persistent B-flat ostinato that both begins and ends the piece and is not absent from a single measure. Around this pedal point, dense textures capture the oppressive haze of the desert heat. Indeed, the florid style of Liszt is here seen in the consistent three staves Ravel was obliged to use to accurately convey his intentions. Finally, amidst the tolling church bells and textures of sound, a mournful melody arises to lament the unknown man’s dismal fate. Joseph DuBose
Classical Music | Piano Music
Maurice Ravel
Gaspard de la Nuit - Le Gibet Play
Recorded on 06/06/2009, uploaded on 02/08/2011
Musician's or Publisher's Notes
When Maurice Ravel set out to compose his three-movement suite Gaspard de la Nuit, he remarked that his objective was to compose a piece of music more difficult than Mily Balakirev’s Islamey. To achieve this lavish technical display, Ravel looked to the florid style of Franz Liszt, which he had also done in his earlier Jeux d’eau of 1901. The suite was composed during 1908 and premiered on January 9, 1909 in Paris by Ricardo Viñes. Ravel based each of the suite’s movements on a poem by the French poet Aloysius Bertrand, whose work he had been introduced to by Viñes. Despite his early death and little success during his career, Bertrand became and inspiration for the early Symbolist poets, and his rather dark world echoed that of Edgar Allen Poe’s. The suite’s title, which Ravel borrowed from Bertrand, is an old French expression, derived from Persia, for the Devil.
In the second song, Le gibet, the tone turns darker still and macabre as the listener is presented with a desert scene and a man hanging limply from a gibbet. Bertrand’s disturbing and morose poem takes its cue from a legend also of devilish origin, namely, Faust, with the quote “Que vois-je remuer autour de ce Gibet?” (“What do I see stirring about that gibbet?”). The poet stands, like the listener, beholding the chilling scene and muses on the sound he hears—is it the grasshopper, the beetle, or the spider? It is none of these, but the far-off, eerie tolling of church bells. Ravel includes the bells in Le gibet with a persistent B-flat ostinato that both begins and ends the piece and is not absent from a single measure. Around this pedal point, dense textures capture the oppressive haze of the desert heat. Indeed, the florid style of Liszt is here seen in the consistent three staves Ravel was obliged to use to accurately convey his intentions. Finally, amidst the tolling church bells and textures of sound, a mournful melody arises to lament the unknown man’s dismal fate. Joseph DuBose
More music by Maurice Ravel
La Valse
Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Faure
Noctuelles from Miroirs
Daphnis and Chloé, Suite No. 2
Une barque sur l'océan, from Miroirs
Alborada del Gracioso, from Miroirs
Pièce en Forme de Habanera
Cinq Mélodies Populaires Grecques
Rhapsodie espagnole
Concerto No. 2 in D Major for Piano and Orchestra
Performances by same musician(s)
Gaspard de la Nuit - Scarbo
Gaspard de la Nuit - Ondine
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