Gaspard de la nuit: Trois Poèmes pour Piano d'apres Aloysius Bertrand (Treasurer of the Night: Three Poems for Piano after Aloysius Bertrand) is a piece for solo piano by Maurice Ravel. It has three movements, each based on a poem by Aloysius Bertrand: A baby grand piano, with the lid up. ... Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) was a French composer and pianist, known especially for the subtlety, richness, and poignancy of his music and generally considered to be one of the major composers of the 20th century. ... Aloysius Bertrand was the writing pseudonym of Louis-Jacques-Napoléon Bertrand (born April 20, 1807 in Ceva (Piedmont, Italy); died April 29, 1841 in Paris). ...

1. Ondine, a tale of a water sprite and her kingdom.
2. Le Gibet, a poem about a hanged man dying slowly, seeing his last sunrise.
3. Scarbo, a small fiend - half goblin, half ghost - making pirouttes, disappearing and scaring a person in his home.

The piece is famous for its incredible difficulty, and for good reason; Ravel indeed intended it to be more difficult than Balakirev's Islamey. For this reason, it is popularly rumoured to be the most difficult solo piano piece in the standard repertoire. Ondine was a water nymph in German mythology. ... Gibbet is a term applied to several different devices used in the capital punishment of criminals and/or the deterrence of potential criminals. ... Islamey: an Oriental Fantasy is a piece of music written by the Russian composer, Mily Balakirev. ...

The work was premiered on January 9, 1909 in Paris by Ricardo Viñes. January 9 is the 9th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... The Eiffel Tower, the international symbol of the city For other uses, see Paris (disambiguation). ... Ricardo Viñes (5 February 1876 – 29 April 1943) was a Spanish pianist famous because of debuting many works by Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. ...

Ondine is reminiscent of the tinkling of the water in a stream, beautifully woven with cascades. This movement was intended to describe the water sprite in Bertrand's poem, attempting to lure men into her domain. In Le gibet, a B flat octave is played 153 times, to signify the tolling bell for a man being hanged in the distance. Scarbo is probably the most difficult of the work, with its terrifying crescendos. Its incredible speeds make it seem almost impossible to play. This movement gives an impression of the fiendish mischief committed by a ghostly imp during the night, fading in and out of vision while changing forms, which is portrayed in those difficult crescendos.

The composer commented on this piece: "I wanted to make a caricature of romanticism. Perhaps it got the better of me." [1]

The manuscript currently resides in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ... The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center is an archive at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and other cultural artifacts from the United States, Great Britain, and France. ... The University of Texas at Austin, often called UT or Texas, is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. ... Nickname: Live Music Capital of the World, ATX Official website: www. ...

External links

• Original text by Louis Bertrand (in French)
• Poem Translations, Musical Background
• Piano Society.com — Ravel — Gaspard de la nuit — Includes free recordings of "Ondine" and "Scarbo" in MP3 format.