Gaspard de la nuit - Le gibet

[fnork]

Rest of Gaspard coming up soon, as well as many other things. There's some background noise in this recording - it's from an open class lesson.

[gvans]

Wonderful stuff, fnork. What a strange and evocative piece. That mid-range repetitive chime, against which everything else in the piece plays off, is played perfectly. It reminds me of the drone in Indian music.

I recall hearing this once before, played by Olga Kern. Ravel had some complex program in mind, which I now forget. I rather like better as pure music.

[fnork]

oh sure, all 3 pieces of Gaspard are inspired by poetry, and each poem is cited prior to each piece! Whether this is meant for the performer alone or for the audience to know of, is hard to say though. Just google "Gaspard de la nuit" to find the poetry. Won't hurt.

[rachfan]

Hi fnork,

I just listened to your "Gibet" and very much enjoyed it.  As I was looking at the score, I see where I translated Bertrand's poem many years ago. The very last stanza by itself describes the gruesome scene:

"It is the bell that tolls at the walls of a town below the horizon and the carcass of a hanged man that reddens the sunset."  

Ravel's music is like a dirge, and the bell is like a hypnotic ostinato. You achieve those effects very well. You've also created the somber tone and and eeirie atmosphere of the scene as the hung corpse twists very slowly in the wind.

In your artistry you have all the layers of the music separated into foreground and background which is obviously critical.

At the top of page 2 you have that chordal passage work in the right hand.  The danger there is that where the treble dynamic changes from pp to mf which then increases to f due to the crescendo, the chordal texture in the low treble makes it difficult to manage clarity due to buildup of overtones.  You might want to consider simultaneous pedals on those chords rather that syncopated pedaling. The problem though is that the syncopated pedaling is more atmospheric.  In that case, the answer might be taking half or quarter pedals there to spill overtones. On the last page, even playing in the low treble again, the quieter ppp dynamic will make the piano much more forgiving there in terms of clarity.  Having said all that, I realize that the hall acoustic will have some bearing in the matter too.  

On the last page, I'm curious (but I'm not at the piano now), is it practical to employ the middle sostenuto pedal for the low bass pedal points in conjunction with the right damper pedal?

Excellent work here!  Very fine playing.  Thanks for sharing your recording.

David

    

[fnork]

hi David, and many thanks for the detailed response! Yes, the spot you are referring to is a very very troublesome one for many pianists, and it also depends a lot on the instrument you play on, etc. How well does it keep the bass notes while letting go of the higher ones in half-pedaling? No way to know until you try... (incidentally, it reminds me of a few spots in the Debussy Octave study, where one has to calculate the exact millisecond for when to release the pedal, as one usually wants to music to continue/flow, but it's so hard to know WHEN those very low bass notes actually disappear, so taht one may continue safely with the next harmony, without blurring...I'm referring to the first page and the repeat of that section, mainly)

That said, I'm not sure what you mean by syncopated pedals/simultaneous pedals...do you refer to flutter pedal, perhaps, or half-pedal...?

[rachfan]

Hi fnork,

You're entirely welcome.

Syncopated pedaling (you might have another name for it there) is used especially in playing legato. (Because I play mostly lyrical music, I use it very often.)  In syncopated pedaling the foot lifts exactly as each new harmony is played, then pressing down again to retain that harmony before the fingers release the keys and while the next harmony is being approached. A shorter way of saying this is simply "play first, pedal afterward".  Thus you catch the harmony immediately after it has been played.

In simultaneous pedaling, one pedals on (or together with) the playing of the harmony to give it impulse or accent.  This ensures a very clean pedal effect too where needed.
 
The middle sostenuto pedal is almost indispensable for low bass pedal (organ) points in my opinion.

You already know and use all of these, but the terminology might be different among different countries.

I agree with you, the piano itself often the determining factor along with the venue.

David

[fnork]

Thanks for clarifying! That's more or less what I thought you meant. Unfortunately, I don't think there's a way of catching the low bass notes in the sostenuto pedal without getting anything else in that pedal...which we dont want. There's a similar place in Scarbo - the passage with 2nd, where there's a low bass note and staccato chords above it, all in the left hand. Would be so nice to keep the bass and do the rest staccato...very hard!

Oh, and another word to use could be "legato pedaling" perhaps - understandable by everyone hehe