Hi, I am attempting Ravel's Gaspard de La Nuit, the Ondine.

Actually I am not quite click with ravel's composition, find his work mostly untunefull and fiendishly difficult. But my friend challenge me on this piece. After much study on the score, and listening to several recordings, I find that I have fallen into the idea of the story.

Anyone who can give any suggestion on what kind of facility/technique I need to acquired to play this piece well? What aspects to look forward to in Ravel's music? What makes his music great? Comparing him with other impressionist composers, like Debussy??

Thanks.

Some of the melodies he's written are simply divine! Like the 2nd movement of the Piano Concerto in G, the Ondine is another perfect example. I totally agree with you about his music being fiendish! It's almost unreadable at sight!

You need a very good technique for Ravel - but technique is only a means to an end!

Including expressive technique!

How's your Pour Le Piano getting on?

Trying oh so hard to get my head around the 2nd page of the Sarabande >.< And the first 4 pages of the Prelude I think are gradually getting worse

We talking Debussy here?!?

Yes, we were

Debussy's Sarabande was on the ABRSM Advanced Certificate syllabus in the past...

T'was? The Prelude is on the Trinity Advanced certificate syllabus, Sarabande was supposedly on the Grade 8 Syllabus once

Yes it was - in the 1980's sometime - either 1983 or 1984 - can't quite remember when I did my grade 8 - I know it was 'cos I did it for my grade 8 exam!!

Ooooh, fun!

I read that as "in the 1890s".....

Ravels music is very complex, virtuosic stuff. For ondine youd need good tremolo, youd need to be pretty good (very good....) with polyrythms (wikipedia article here might be of some use, dunno...), youd need very accurate pedaling, youd need to be able to play very fast (the first bar of the un peu plus lent section has something like 95 notes between both hands ).
I think the dynamics are part of what makes this piece so fienishly difficult. Push your fingers down into the keys instead of striking them, this should help keep very close contact with the fingers to the keys and set the feel for the very soft touch. Um.... cant think of anything else right now.Its too late.

Heres a few links you might find useful....

http://www.russischeschule.com/Ravel.htm
http://members.aol.com/benedit3/bertrand.html#Ondine

You cheeky young things - I'm not quite that old yet...........

This is a fiendish piece - I hope you have exacted a matching endeavour from your friend.

I have had one 'read' through Gaspard - along the lines of "ooh, here's a bar with only 50 notes, I can probably tackle that" and skipping the rest I'm aiming my sights a little lower, and learning the Sonatine.

I attended the "impressionism and 20th century piano" workshop at Benslow last year and the advice was to be very careful to play sensitively, but not with overt sentiment.

hoping this doesnt sound too negative, if you need suggestions on how to approach this, you should really find a teacher familiar with ravel. just playing the right hand at the right dynamic and very lightly, evenly is not easy.

This question would probably be easier to answer if we knew the weaknesses in your technique currently. One reason why a teacher who can listen to you play is invaluable. How long have you been playing the piano for and what sort of repertoire have you been playing already? Is this piece a huge leap for you or are you used to playing pieces at such a difficult level?

As for how to play it: look for some good recordings of all of Ravel's piano music (not too vast, it fits on 2 CDs) and listen to it to get a feel for what others do (not just on this piece). Further expand your search to listen to the music of some of his contemporaries and influences : Debussy and Satie would be a good place to start.

Thowwi

I totally agree about it being fiendish. It's difficult to READ let alone PLAY!

Thanks for the advice. I have been playing piano for more than 20 years. Not virtousic, but I think I can build upas I go along. I think it would take years before I am able to complete this piece, or I may not able to play it in my life time. But at least I have tried.

I did have done other difficult work by chopin, debussy before, which my friends and teachers har adviced me not to do it because of their difficulty. But somehow I still manage to finish them. Of course I still practicing them. Just perfecting them gives me a lot of pleasure.

I am quite new to Ravel. He is the composer whom currently I love exploring.

Thanks, anyway.

That's the spirit I reckon - keep trying at it.

I don't believe I'll ever get something like Gaspard into a state where I'd play it to even one tolerant listener, but there's much in it to enjoy playing even so. And let's be honest, we're doing this music thing primarily for ourselves, right?

But like I said, I do hope that your friend has a similar challenge to take up in response. Firewalking, tightrope walking, memorising War and Peace for example?

Happy Ravel'ing.

One thing that I heard that had helped me playing Debussy (same applies to Ravel) is that you pretend there's no hammers! Compared to their Eastern European counterparts like Prokofiev, Bartok etc went for a more percussive sound to emphasise the hammer in the piano

And not Un-Ravel-ing

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

glad you didn't

It is a piece which, after some weeks of practising, is not as hard as it looks, coz Ravel's piano writing really suits the hand, and it should come slowly but easily (quite a paradox isn't it?).

What I mean is, if you practise it patiently and slowly enough at first, and gradually build up speed as you find the way to play it with the least movement, and gain flexibility, you should be fine with this piece although there is no guarantee you can play it up to speed, or at a crazy speed that some pianists do... facilities of different people simply differ, but you can definitely get more from the piece than you believed you can!

(Hope it sounds encouraging enough)