Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 11/24/2010, uploaded on 04/25/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes
Scarbo, from Gaspard de la Nuit

Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit was inspired by Ravel's reading of Symbolist poet Aloysius Bertrand's, "Gaspard de la Nuit: Fantasies a la maniere de Rembrandt et de Callot," prose poems that express an infatuation with the bizarre and grotesque with decadent precision. Alfred Cortot called Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit" (1908) among "the most astonishing examples of interpretive virtuosity ever contrived by the industry of composers."

Ravel told his friend, composer Maurice Delage, that he wished to write something for piano that would be more difficult to play than Balakirev's "Islamey." If any one of its three movements shows that he succeeded it is "Scarbo." Imagining the terror that results from lying rigid, unable to move, as a vicious goblin flies through a darkened bedroom inspired Ravel to a breathtaking tour de force of sheer virtuosity.      Inna Faliks