The inspiration for “Gaspard de la Nuit”(1908) was a small book of poems by the same title given to Ravel(1875-1937). The book was written by a early 19th century French poet Aloysius Bertrand (1807-1841). From that small volume of prose poems, Ravel chose three, “Ondine”, “Le Gibet”, and “Scarbo”.

The piano suite “Gaspard de la Nuit” is a masterpiece of musical styles the best embodiment in Ravel piano music. Connecting music, includes both pre-idea of Ravel music, but also indicates that the latter part of his creative direction. Ravel uses the rich musical language personality to describe three different image and mood in poem “Gaspard de la Nuit” by Bertrand. On the other hands, Ravel makes a lot of new explorations and attempts in the the piano performance techniques by making use of many distinctive and abstruse technique and means.This enriches and promotes the multiplicity development of piano performance technique in 20th century.

“Gaspard de la Nuit”. The research includes three parts. The first part presents Ravel’s music career and literary background, and discuss how Ravel’s music is related to literature, and survey all his literature related music works. The second part would analyze the composition in detailed, containing its structure, tonal, motives, harmonic analysis, tempo and musical terms. The third part discusses the connection between music and literature in “Gaspard de la Nuit”.

Program:

J. S. Bach(1685-1750): Italienisches Konzert in F Major, BWV971

L. v. Beethoven(1770-1827): 32 Variations in C minor, WoO 80

M. Ravel(1875-1937): “Gaspard de la Nuit”

Ⅰ Ondine Ⅱ Le Gibet Ⅲ Scarbo

N. Kapustin (1937- ): Variations, Op. 41