Ravel - La Valse: peculiar notes

[quintessence]

I was reading through Ravel's La Valse for piano solo, when I encountered these peculiar notes:



I would be very much humbled, indeed honoured if someone could tell me what this means and how this should be played.

Thanks very much in advance. 

[pianowolfi]

You have to play e and e# together. Similar cases appear already in Chopin's Etudes.

[thalbergmad]

Would it not have been easier to write e and f???

[pianowolfi]

Well haha I checked the score and both staffs are written in bass clef, so it's g# and g natural.

[pianowolfi]

Would it not have been easier to write e and f???

That depends on the harmonic context. I haven't analyzed this piece, so I can only guess, but it seems to me that Ravel uses a sort of bitonality here, so it's more clear to write each leading note according to it's respective tonal center.

[pianowolfi]

In the orchestral score the harps have to play often e# and f together. Haha I think harpists can't be so touchy when it comes to enharmonic relations . They just happily live with it, like many other instrumentalists, because of course e# and f (for instance) are not the same note at all.
I'm rather missing the difference, as a pianist. Of course, what you think is what you hear, but it would be neat to have all the enharmonic relatives on the piano, too.