The Bi-weekly Listening and Appreciation Thread: Gaspard de la nuit [2/3/2011]

[Szykneij]

Thanks for posting that link, Luke. As someone who has limited keyboard skills, the initial 7 sharps in the key signature as well as the 6 flats later on are something that makes an already intimidating piece of music look even more daunting to learn. A pianist friend of mine, though, used to say he found pieces written in keys with a lot of sharps or flats easier to play. Is that the case here? Are the rapid scales and repeated notes you mention more easily executed when they involve mostly black keys, or doesn't it matter much?

[Luke]

Thanks for posting that link, Luke. As someone who has limited keyboard skills, the initial 7 sharps in the key signature as well as the 6 flats later on are something that makes an already intimidating piece of music look even more daunting to learn. A pianist friend of mine, though, used to say he found pieces written in keys with a lot of sharps or flats easier to play. Is that the case here? Are the rapid scales and repeated notes you mention more easily executed when they involve mostly black keys, or doesn't it matter much?

I tell my pupils that, too, and in general it is true. They often lie much more easily under the fingers (compare Schubert's G flat Impromptu with the 'easier' transposition into G that is often found - it's nowhere hear as comfy to play in the 'easy' version). But in any case, that's not how things are here. Ravel's language is very chromatic, so one could almost never say that the hand is mostly on black or white keys at any moment. Put simply, it's a bitch to play. The exception is that exquisite moment on page 10 where things purify down to their essences for a while, and Ravel allows us first an all white note glissando, running the length of the keyboard, and then, instantly, an all black note one. This is the sort of thing that Ravel, the consummate writer for instruments, was always to wonderful at managing - it's the reason why so many of his orchestral pieces are written in keys that allow maximum use of string harmonics, G being the most obvious of them (look at the first page of Soupir, from the Mallarme Songs, to see what I mean)

I think, in fact, that at least some of the reason Ravel uses such esoteric key signatures in Gaspard is that they carry with them implications of otherness, magic etc, and also of virtuosity, which was so much of a prime cause of the piece. Can't prove that, obviously, but it's how composer's minds work, I think, and I've gone into it at length in discussions of key symbolism on this board before. I wouldn't say that there's any specific key symbolism at work in this piece, though the sharp-bristling nature of Ondine is a conventional water-theme (c.w. Ravel's own Jeux d'eau, and with its model, Liszt's Jeux d'eaux a la Villa d'Este) and a conventional magical theme (compare with more Liszt, or Rimsky-Korsakov, or, later, with Scriabin), and the deeply flatwards nature of Le Gibet is often reserved for deathly/funeral/devilish pieces too. But in this particular case, as I say, I have a feeling that Ravel just wanted something extreme, devilish, scary, outlandish, and, given that he expressly wanted to outdo Islamey with this piece something that looked hard on the page (notation and its aesthetic/psychological implications is SO important!!)

[mc ukrneal]

Yes, I have. Haven't posted on this thread, even though Ravel is close to my heart, and even though this is his greatest work for solo piano, because when I last looked it was essentially a list of recordings, and I'm not well-placed to take part in that particular discussion. But discussion of the piece itself, I'm very happy to do.

The score is here, btw - http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/e/e0/IMSLP03178-Ravel-Gaspard.Durand.pdf

The question above is about terminology - is the repeating B flat (later A sharp) octave an ostinato or a pedal note? And later, re the opening figure of Ondine, we have another mild ruffle of contention - is it a trill, or an ostinato? In both cases, I think, the answer is both = the octave B flat is a pedal tone which runs through countless harmonic contexts like a disturbing idee fixe, unflappable (nearly - actually there are a couple of places where technical considerations mean it becomes slightly dislodged), fateful as the gibbet bell it represents. And it's an ostinato too, because it does have enough repeating diversity, both rhythmic and also registral (sometimes only the top B flat plays) to be that also. And the Ondine figure - if it's heard as a trill, it is one, and certainly it has the basics of a trill in there, the neighbour-note alternations. And at the same time, clearly it isn't a trill, not a textbook ones - it is written out, it alternates a chord with a single note, and most importantly there is a repeated note built into the pattern. An ostinato, then? - yes, technically, but it is so much quicker than an ostinato usually is - it dissolves into itself, it shimmers like a single protracted entity smudged through the piece.

Upon relistening to this, I see what you mean about it being both and it actually helps recast the paradigm as well, so that now the piece is more contradictory within itself and this added to my enjoyment and my ability to hear what is going on (did that make sense?). And thanks for the link to the score - I rarely follow along, but this was useful.

[Senta]

Oh nice...I shall have to find my recording or two I have of this and take part! Not as familiar with this lovely piece of his, been quite a while since hearing...

[Brian]

Oh nice...I shall have to find my recording or two I have of this and take part! Not as familiar with this lovely piece of his, been quite a while since hearing...

Speaking of "been quite a while since hearing," welcome back! 
(And I listened to Gaspard last night and will give it another hearing this afternoon.)

[Octo_Russ]

Just listened to this piece a couple of times, playing Pogorelich on the disc below, i especially found the opening Ondine to be so magical, i wrote about this piece in my Blog, http://octoruss.blogspot.com/2011/02/ravel-gaspard-de-la-nuit-pogorelich.html here's an excerpt,

     Well all three pieces stunned me in different ways, but it's the opening Ondine that really had me in a spell, Ondine is a female water fairy, and like a siren, she lures men into a watery grave with her enticings, the tinkling and the cascades are perfect and thrilling, you can 'feel' the water up and down your spine, it's just sheer impossible to focus in on any 'moment by moment' analysis with timings, the whole thing blurs into a wonderful watercolour painting in the rain, awash with all sorts of fusion, the opening ostinato is so incredibly atmospheric, what a phenomenal start to a piece of music, and it's this opening that comes back again and again that nags the soul, the piece is full of lots of high treble notes, i just love the extremes of the keyboard, lots of agitation and repetition too, and i believe lots of sharps and flats as well, i like the way that Ravel ends the piece with a variation of the opening ostinato, Pogorelich is a master storyteller, capturing the fleeting magic and half lights that this music needs, a lovely flow to it, at times the left hand sounds a lot like a harp strumming, the plinking and trickling of water is fantastic, i want to listen to some other versions too to get a better idea of this piece, i'm so sure this will be my 'recording of the month' for February.

[springrite]

Of the recordings I listened to last week, there was one that has Sir John Gilgud reading the three poems before each section. I know this is almost never done now, nor was the practice endorsed by the composer, but it has been done before. I find it interesting but ultimately distracting.

Now about the bell. We all seem to agree that it should be haunting, but does that mean it should sound more prominent (Michelangeli, etc.) or quiet and blended in, though noticeable (Pogorelich)? Personally, after so many listenings, I find that the less prominent sound is more effective. Instead of hitting you over the head with it and you can't possibly miss it, the more distant and quiet but insistent sound is more haunting to this listener. I wonder how it is marked in the score?

[Luke]

I wonder how it is marked in the score?

Essentially, it's marked pp, later toujours pp, and ppp with a diminuendo at the end at the end (there's a moment of mf in the first half of the piece too). Tellingly, it isn't always given its own separate dynamic marking, but it is nevertheless clear that it should be differentiated from the rest of the music, however, even when all is very quiet. That's because it has its own distinct articulation markings which mark that difference - and as I said in an earlier post, the famous difficulty in this piece is the variety of touches (27, according to one commentator, as I said!) needed to make it work. In this case there are all manner of different touches and articulations within a single dynamic shading to ensure that the bell always comes through, without bashing it in an unfortunate way. Players who have to resort to that are not really succeeding in meeting the main challenge of the piece, then, IMO, even if their fingers are up to the more obvious demands of Ondine and Scarbo.

A further thought - it's a typical Ravel touch that the bell should be played in an essentially unvarying, objective way (it is marked sans presser ni ralentir jusqu'a la fin*) - because the bell is something separate to the imaginary onlooker and not dependent on his mood. OTOH, the rest of the music, which, it could be said, represents the onlooker's internal response, has its obvious subjective swells and shadings. Although, and this is another of those characteristic ambiguities I was mentioning a few posts back, the subjectivity itself is also restrained in that way peculiar to Ravel, whose most famous marking is 'sans ralentir' - in this case, the harrowingly beautiful melody in the central secion is marked 'sans expression'. Which enforced restraint makes it all the more expressive and Ravelian. (I love this composer SO much!!).

*this almost seems to imply a kind of interior rubato in which the never-slowing, never-hurrying bell and 'everything else' can go slightly out of sync, in the way we are told Chopin played his own music. But I'm not sure how the fastidiously precise Ravel would have felt about that!

PAul, I linked to the score on the last page of this thread, if you're interested in looking through it.

[Luke]

In the book Ravel selon Ravel, Vlado Perlemuter, who studied all of Ravel's piano pieces with the composer, give his own insights and recollections of what Ravel told him about the pieces. There's a fascinating chapter on Gasard, each piece taken separately. I could copy it out if anyone was interested. But here are the most important chunks:

Ondine: R didn't want it too slow, and wrote 'faster, more melting' on Perlemuter's score. He wanted a supple rubato, and again, not too slow a pulse so that rhythm isn't heard as subdivided. He wanted the pause before the recitative near the ending not to be long, so that the piece didn't fall into two pieces. He didn't want a rall at the end, - he wrote on Perlemuter's score 'rallentando by augmentation; which meant to him that the rall is contained within the notation already, and he wanted the end to be non legato, to recall the opening.

le Gibet: Perlemuter thinks it one of R's most diffcult pieces because the pianist mustn't be afraid of making it monotonous. The bell must be unchanging. 'R insisted on absolutely strict tempo. The grandeur of the piece depends on the rhythmic structure. It is not simply a bell swinging; Ravel asked for the 'scaffold' theme to be well marked, but without expression, whereas the answer should be very cantabile.' 'It is necessary to have complete control of the keyboard. Thus in this expressive passage, both hands play in unison with the sonority of the bell and at the same time with another sonority for the additional note which forms the chord.' The questioner (Helene Jourdan-Morhange, another Ravel associate) asks 'in spite of the strictness which R demands in the whole piece it seems to me that, all the same, there is one phrase whose pathos might advantageouly be brought out' Perlemuter replies 'Actually, no. The pathos of the phrase, which is real, only takes on its whole grandeur when one observes exactly the intransigence of Ravel; he indicated, a little marked, but without expression' (this is the bit I was talking about in my last post). Morhange says 'the curious thing is that this phrase, played in a slipshod manner, becomes a parody of Puccini!' and Perlemuter replies 'That is why you must provide the expressive intensity in strict time.' At the end - 'don't slow down. this marvellous ending is obtained by sonority and not by slowing down. The phrase must melt into the pianissimo'

Scarbo: R expected a flawless performance! Ravel intended to write something full of pure craftsmanship but didn't manage - he got taken over by the music! 'Scarbo exceeds the intentions of the composer' 'When I worked at Scarbo with the master, he told me 'I wanted to make a caricature of romanticism,' then lowering his voice he added: 'but perhaps I let myself be taken over by it.' Mourhange finds 'the essence of Ravel in that honesty towards himself.' In Perlemuter's score R marked that the first three notes were to be played 'like a double-bassoon' and the repeated note 'like a side drum'; later on, other orchestral parallels 'like timpani' etc, Unlike with others of his piano pieces, he didn't transcribe this one for orchestra, and in fact viewed it the other way - he told Perlemuter ('in a slightly bantering tone') 'I wanted to make an orchestral transcription for the piano!' In places, 'He wanted very explosive hairpins throughout, not only those needed for the sake of expression.' 'In the ascending chromatic seconds he wanted an enormous amount of pedal. It should be very muffled, the pianissimo coming from very far away in order to save up the brilliant crescendo leading tot final episode. Here again, the crescendo is never made big enough.' 'At the end, when the romantic theme reaches its climax, the master wrote on my music 'stormy' ', and at the very end ' Ravel marked 'faster' for me. Was it becuase I was playing it too slowly? In any case, it throws light on Ravel's intentions. he did not want the ending to be too slow, and once again, he marked over the last four bars 'don't slow down' '