“Gaspard Night” ( French: Gaspard de la nuit , traditional translation of “Night Visions”), subtitle “Three Poems for Piano by A. Bertrand” - piano suite by Maurice Ravel , written in 1908 as musical illustrations for poems in prose by Aloysius Bertrand from his eponymous collection. Bertrand's texts paint the surreal world of night dreams, inhabited by strange creatures.
Bertrand Collection
The story of Bertrand's collection is a romantic hoax. In the preface to the collection, the poet tells how one day in Dijon he came across a strange disheveled old man Gaspard de la Nuit, who told him that he had been looking for meaning in art all his life, tormented by the question of who is behind the creative talent, God or the devil, etc. Suddenly the old man handed Bertrand his manuscript “Fantasies in the manner of Rembrandt and Callot ” ( Fr. Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot ) and hastily retired “to write a will”. They didn’t see him again. In modern science, the name of the mysterious old man Gaspard de la Nuit is symbolically interpreted as “the keeper of the treasures of the kingdom of darkness” [1] , and the name of the collection of Bertrand in the Russian translation is transmitted as “Gaspard from the darkness” [2] .
Bertrand's poetry collection was completed in 1836, first published in 1842. Ravel used the latest edition, which included the poems Le Gibet and Scarbo that were missing in Bertrand’s original manuscript.
Suite Ravel
- In the play “Undine” ( French Ondine ), among the murmur, splashes and overflows, a lyrical melody sounds, giving the image of the water element warmth and humanization, developing from gentle intonations at the beginning to passionate ones in the climax.
- In the play “The Hangman” ( French Le Gibet ), empty, lifelessly swaying chords - the body of a hanged man - are played against the backdrop of repeated repetitions of a single note transmitting distant beats of a bell.
- “Scarbo” ( French Scarbo ) - a small goblin (like a Russian drummer ), a shadow in the moonlight, restless, banging, scratching, laughing in the night, not letting you sleep, appearing on the edge of the field of vision and disappearing unclear where.
The music of "Gaspar Night" requires great virtuosity from the performer. “Scarbo” refers to the technically most difficult works of the piano repertoire - Ravel said that he specifically wanted to compose a play even more difficult than “Islamey” by M. A. Balakirev .
The suite was first performed by Ricardo Vignes on January 9, 1909 in Paris .
The author’s manuscript of "Gaspar Night" is stored in the library of the University of Texas (USA).
Orchestration
Marius Constant ( en: Marius Constant ) created the orchestral version of the work in 1988 .
Notes
- ↑ Bruhn S. Images and Ideas in Modern French Piano Music: the Extra-musical Subtext in Piano Works by Ravel, Debussy, and Messiaen. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1997, p. Xxviii.
- ↑ Bertrand A. Gaspard from darkness. Fantasies in the manner of Rembrandt and Callot / Translation by E. A. Gunst. M .: Nauka, 1981 (series "Literary Monuments").
Links
- Gaspard de la nuit - lyrics by A. Bertrand in the original
- Gaspard Night: sheet music by International Music Score Library Project