Gaspard de la Nuit

Quick Facts

• Gaspard de la Nuit (Gaspard of the Night) is a piece for piano consisting of three movements, each based on a poem from Aloysius Bertrand’s haunting collection of prose based on Gothic imagery, Gaspard de la Nuit — Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot:
  1. Ondine
  2. Le Gibet
  3. Scarbo
     • “Gaspard” is a word of Persian origin denoting “the man in charge of the royal treasures.”
• The work was written in 1908; premiered in Paris in 1909 performed by Ricardo Viñes.
• Each movement is dedicated to a different pianist:
  1. Harold Bauer
  2. Jean Marnold
  3. Rudolph Ganz¹

About the Piece

• Gaspard de la Nuit is infamous among piano repertoire for its extreme difficulty, perhaps one of the most difficult piano works ever written. Upon reflecting on the work, Ravel wrote, “Perhaps I got a little carried away.”…….²
• You can find the English translations of Bertrand’s three poems here (under “Structure”).

1. “Gaspard de la nuit (Ravel, Maurice),” IMSLP, accessed January 10, 2024, https://imslp.org/wiki/Gaspard_de_la_nuit_(Ravel,_Maurice).
2. Rebecca Franks, “Building a library: Gaspard de la Nuit,” BBC Music Magazine Vol. 26, No. 9 (2018), 68-69.