Maurice Ravel/Marius Constant - Gaspard de la nuit
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- Опубліковано 20 лип 2024
- Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937) / Marius Constant (1925 - 2004) - Gaspard de la nuit, M. 55 (1908, orch. 1990)
I. Ondine [0:00]
II. Le gibet [6:46]
III. Scarbo [11:58]
Duisburger Philharmonic Orchestra, Jonathan Darlington (2007)
Maurice Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit, M. 55 is a suite for solo piano typically lasting around 22 minutes. Marius Constant, primarily known today for writing the theme for The Twilight Zone, ambitiously orchestrated the work in 1990. The orchestration is scored for large orchestra with an instrumentation similar to Ravel's in Daphnis et Chloe.
"Ravel’s inspiration to write Gaspard de la nuit derived from vivid and macabre poems by the French Romantic poet Aloysius Bertrand (1807-1841), to whose work Ravel was introduced by the pianist Ricardo Viñes, a fellow pupil at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1908 Ravel set three poems from Bertrand’s eponymous collection, written in 1830. Viñes gave the first performance on January 9, 1909. Each piece is dedicated to a different musician, respectively Harold Bauer, Jean Marnold and Rudolph Ganz.
Ondine is a beautiful, mischievous water sprite who tries to attract mortal men to her magical kingdom through seductive singing. Ravel portrays her in the rare key of C-sharp major (seven sharps!) with glistening, delicate, 'water-music' as befits Bertrand’s description of 'Ondine who skims over the drops of water that resonate on the diamond-shaped segments of your window illuminated by the dismal rays of the moon.'
A sinister atmosphere of desolation and ghostly terror pervades 'Le Gibet.' The dynamic markings never rise above mezzo-piano. In some of the eeriest sounds in all music, Ravel portrays a corpse hanging from a gibbet, swaying in the wind against a sky reddened by the setting sun. The implacable tolling of a distant bell, represented throughout by persistent B-flat octaves, is set against a richly varied harmonic landscape. So pervasive is this tolling B-flat that 'Le Gibet' has been called 'a fantasia on one note.'
The final movement, no less eerie than 'Le Gibet,' portrays the unpredictable, lightning-like appearances and disappearances of the malicious dwarf Scarbo, who changes his shape, size and colour at will. The scintillating, hallucinatory effects require such technical dexterity as to have earned Gaspard an almost mythic status among pianists."
(source: vanrecital.com/2012/02/progra...)
Original audio: • Maurice Ravel orch. Ma...
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This feels as if Ravel orchestrated it. Such a wonderful orchestration, especially ondine.
Unbelievably good for such a pianistic piece.
my grandma's brother plays the first contrabassist here. Makes me proud :)
Wow
I think he said in a radio broadcast that he worked for 3 years on this. Magnificent!
That bell in Le Gibet really gives goosebumps. Very interesting orchestration.
yess!
A very rare version of Gaspard de la Nuit, i love it
Wow, this piece translates so well
It's a keenly haunting orchestration, and one equally as difficult as the piano original, that I hope will bring a wider audience to the suite. Interesting, in Scarbo (3rd mvt.) the three-note incipit by the contrabassoon is marked in this arrangement to be played quite slowly, which is something of a tradition among mature pianists that younger ones don't quite agree with. The score of the piano original doesn't explicitly call for that gesture to be drawn out. MANY thanks for posting this!
Can you put a time marker for the part you're talking about? Im not quite familiar with it but I would like to know where it is so that I could compare som pianists recordings of it
I've been searching for something like this, but I only have just found it. This is so breathtaking :O
A brilliant adaptation of Ravel's piano piece. Constant composed the Twilight Zone music.
Favourite video on the internet!!!!
What an incredible orchestration!
Fantastic orchestration!!
Thank you for this video, I love this version.
Outstanding. Almost if M. Ravel orchestrated it himself.
This is super cool. I understand why someone would feel that the piece is way too pianistic to be orchestrated, but you have to give them man some credit in that this is amazing. I think it stays true to what Ravel was trying to do. Even if it is ‘Hollywoody’ let’s remember that Hollywood orchestration is very much influenced by Ravel (he may be the most influential orchestrator in that regard-up there with Holst and Stravinsky).
Compared to other orchestrations of pianist pieces this one is by far the best I’ve ever seen. I remember listening to a Haas orchestration of Scriabin’s Black Mass and to me it kinda fell flat. And Brant’s orchestration of the Concord Sonata has a completely different objective than staying true to the composers intent. Overall I’d say this is one of the strongest orchestrations I’ve seen, and I believe there’s lots of gold to be found for composers wanting to learn how to orchestrate their compositions.
Brilliant!
I love the sound of mvt.2❤ the percussions
What a masterpiece...
素晴らしい！！！
i like the 2nd one, its so haunting yet sumblime
Formidable orquestación. Toda la tímbrica de Ravel presente en sus obras orquestales. Pareciera que el mismo Ravel la hubiese orquestado.
Great video! Can I ask where you got the score? I’m working on my thesis based in Gaspard de la Nuit and would love to have the digital score, thanks!
If you have institutional access to nkoda (or a personal subscription), I'd recommend viewing the score there, since it is likely much higher quality than this scan. If you don't though, send me an email :)
Merveilleux esprit français, exquise transcription
About 95% of this is absolutely amazing.
What was the 5% you didn't like?
@@violboythe 5% he didnt liked was after the piece ended 😢
@@violboy The climax of ondine was pretty underwhelming. This orchestration emphasizes the wholetone descent and completely ignores the arpeggios sorrounding it. I also believe the tempo switch is too drastic. Except from that i agree that this was amazing.
@@vitamingetranke7326yes. It should also have been slower, in my opinion
@@oengd1696 that is exactly what i meant by the tempo switch being too drasctic
great textural writing. I dare say this could even be more intricate than how Ravel would orchestrate it himself
not really. more complex but not better alas
Actually I think quite the opposite. I don’t know, but I feel like ravel wouldn’t like the rendition of the first movement.
But who knows, he’s dead. However I didn’t like the ondine. And it’s due to the interpretation of the orchestrator. It doesn’t convey the atmosphere of ravels pianistic score the way I think of it. It’s very fairytale and bling with the celesta. However the original poeme doesn’t really suggest this and it’s more about the crooked nature of ondine and her attempt to lure the protagonist into something he doesn’t want. And this doesn’t really come across.
Maybe technically good and very effect heavy (has this Hollywood film music sound), but not my taste of orchestration.
@@FlorianBriegel you do have a point. The technique is there, but whether it captures the context is another story I suppose
It was nice but a little simplistic, underwhelming
@@FlorianBriegel There's also the problem of interpretation here I think. It feels like the orchestra/conductor have a hard time tracking what's important and what's not. The story gets lost in all these embellishments and effects a lot of the time. The problem probably comes from both sides.
Where did you find his scores?? I’ve been looking everywhere
Try nkoda.
@@XinhaoZheng Can you save to pdf or take screen shots of the Nkoda app?
can someone share the score?
Marius Constant known for Twilight Zone theme song
Unfortunately... He was not a film music composer, but - besides his conducting career - he wrote many other more interesting compositions. I remember in particular hearing his stunning "Nana symphonie" (after Zola), but this, like most of his works, has not been recorded.
Here is a new orchestration of Ondine, with a rolling score and a simpler tone that Constant's : ua-cam.com/video/ddoaNf0wQXs/v-deo.html
16:36
Marius Constant did a good job, but I really don’t like it. It is meant to be for piano solo, orchestrating it makes it sound very emphatic and we lose all the subtility of the original piece.
I feel the same, but scarbo is better with orchestra for me
It definitely doesn't not have the fluidity that a solo performance has but in terms of textural intrigue there's so much good stuff happening especially for a near impossible effort of orchestrating such a perfect work. I think the rigidity of performance honestly just comes down to music direction from the top down, you can definitely hear individual elements of musicality but as whole it is generally on rails.
Nah you just wanna sound pretentious sorry buddy
I mean I sort of understand for ondine and to an extent le gibet. But Scarbo here is 10x better
I dont think the last mov fully works :-(
Not in this interprétation.
@@gabrielkaz5250 No the ensemble is too inaccurate
@@gabrielkaz5250 Exactly. I don't think the orchestra/conductor knew exactly what the story was they were trying to tell (or who is telling it at what points in the score).
I don’t think the whole set works… it is meant for solo piano.
@@randomscorevideos a lot of piano staff works perfectly in orchestra version. Demonstrably so - being a staple of orchestra repertoire. Racel himself orchestrated a lot if not of his piano pieces.
ravel: pas mal
(not bad in french)
"pas mal" is literally "not bad", but it actually means "quite good"...
Hm, not a fan. I love how he does the arpeggios in the first movement. Very ravel-esque. But all in all gaspard is (obv) just a very pianistic piece and in this case doesn’t really benefit from the orchestration though. The original is a masterpiece in orchestration in itself and it’s written for piano.
I think most of the time, the orchestration is plain out obvious and bold and I don’t mean that in a good way.
For example in the second movement he uses the chimes to orchestrate the resemblance of bells in the piano. That reminds of a lecture about different attempts in orchestrating Vallee des cloches as ravel never did it himself. And they talked about an orchestration that didn’t use the obvious tubular bells and tried to achieve the bell sound in other ways (I think it was Percy grainger). And that is way more satisfying somehow, not using the first thing that comes to mind. Ahhhh, idk
Also the expressiveness and timing of the orchestra is sooo difficult to get right (you’d need a lot of practice), compared to a single pianist playing and controlling every parameter. It’s a little rushed and that doesn’t elevate my experience.
Pizzicato should have been used for the bells in Gibet.
I think the bells just were a very bad choice in general. Doesn't work in any way for me
I do agree, it is meant for piano solo, that’s it ! There’s no point in orchestrating it.
erm.... based?
Yes: based on the piano original...
Ravel has orchestrated a piano composition of Musorsky:"Pictures of an exposition ".That is indeed a masterpiece. Ravel was a good orchestrator and Musorsky a great melodia and composer and that's why that composition is so great."Gaspard de la nuit"is an interesting composition but Ravel was a less good melodist comparing to the genius of Musorsky.