Gaspard de la nuit
Encyclopedia
Gaspard de la nuit: Trois poèmes pour piano d'après Aloysius Bertrand is a piece for solo piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 by Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, written in 1908. It has three movements, each based on a poem by Aloysius Bertrand
Aloysius Bertrand
Louis-Jacques-Napoléon “Aloysius” Bertrand was a French poet instrumental in the introduction of the prose poem into French literature and is credited with inspiring later Symbolist poets...

. The work was premiered on January 9, 1909 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 by Ricardo Viñes
Ricardo Viñes
Ricardo Viñes was a Spanish pianist. He first publicly performed many important works by Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Manuel de Falla, Déodat de Séverac and Isaac Albéniz. He was also the piano teacher of composer Francis Poulenc and pianist Léo-Pol Morin.He was born in Lleida,...

.

The piece is famous for its incredible difficulty, partly because Ravel intended the Scarbo movement to be more difficult than Balakirev
Mily Balakirev
Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev ,Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, and information sources used in the article sometimes report dates as old style rather than new style. Dates in the article are taken verbatim from the source and therefore are in the same style as the source...

's Islamey. Because of its technical challenges and profound musical structure, it is considered one of the most-difficult solo piano pieces in the standard repertoire.

The manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 currently resides in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
The Harry Ransom Center is a library and archive at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the United States and Europe. The Ransom Center houses 36 million literary manuscripts, 1 million rare books, 5 million photographs, and more...

 of The University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

.

Etymology

The name Gaspard
Casper (name)
The name Casper and the same sounding name Kasper are derived from Gaspar which in turn is from an ancient Chaldean word, "Gizbar", which according to Strong's Concordance means "Treasurer". The word "Gizbar" appears in the Hebrew version of the Old Testament Book of Ezra . In fact, the modern...

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.

Ondine

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 the fast repetition of three-note chords.

Le gibet

The observer is presented with a view of the lone corpse of a hanged man reddened by the setting sun; a bell tolls in the distance, creating the deathly atmosphere that surrounds the observer. Throughout the entire piece is a B-flat octave ostinato, imitative of the tinting bells, that must remain distinctive and constant in tone as notes cross over and dynamics change.

Scarbo

This movement depicts the nighttime mischief of a small fiend or goblin of some sort, making pirouettes, flitting in and out of the darkness, disappearing and suddenly reappearing. Its uneven flight, hitting and scratching against the panels of the bed, 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 of technical difficulty of the three movements. Technical difficulties include repeated notes in both hands, and tricky double-note scales in major seconds in the right hand.

Orchestral versions

Eugene Goossens
Eugène Aynsley Goossens
Sir Eugene Aynsley Goossens was an English conductor and composer.-Biography:He was born in Camden Town, London, the son of the Belgian conductor and violinist Eugène Goossens and the grandson of the conductor Eugène Goossens...

 orchestrated Gaspard in 1942. Marius Constant
Marius Constant
Marius Constant was a Romanian-born French composer and conductor. Known primarily for his television soundtracks, his most widely heard score was the iconic Twilight Zone theme song....

 orchestrated the piece in 1988.

External links

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