Gaspard de la nuit

Ravel was a meticulous craftsman, the fastidious creator of exquisite soundworlds. He believed there was a perfect solution to every musical problem, and accordingly polished each new piece until it sparkled like a piece of iridescent jewellery. This reached its zenith in an intoxicating three-movement suite titled Gaspard de la nuit (1908), based on poems by the tragically short-lived pre-Symbolist writer Aloysius Bertrand. Gaspard opens with “Ondine”, the story of a mercurial water sprite who playfully lures passing men into her watery domain, suggested magically by a liquid melody that emerges from and plunges back into a series of glistening sonorities. “Le Gibet” (“The Gibbet”) captures a chilling, macabre scene in which a hanging corpse is reddened by the fading sunset to the accompaniment of a tolling bell, evoked by a constantly reiterated B flat. It finishes with “Scarbo”, a smouldering, incandescent depiction of a goblin apparition, whose startling unpredictability is translated into musical gestures of transcendental virtuosity.