Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit, etc.

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One could expect Pierre-Laurent Aimard's account of Gaspard de la nuit to have pleased the composer mightily: totally focused and attentive to the text, scrupulously controlled in sound and movement,... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Release Date: 6th Jun 2005
Catalogue No: 2564621602
Label: Warner Classics
Length: 2 hours 18 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

September 2005

Editor's Choice

Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit

Work length23:07

$3.90

$5.10

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

Gaspard de la nuit : I Ondine

Track length6:47

$1.30

$1.70

II Le gibet

Track length7:10

$1.30

$1.70

III Scarbo

Track length9:10

$1.30

$1.70

Carter, E: Night Fantasies (1980)

Work length22:23

$1.30

$1.70

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

Carter, E: Diversions (1999)

Work length7:47

$2.60

$3.40

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

Track length4:29

$1.30

$1.70

Track length3:18

$1.30

$1.70

Carter, E: 90+ for piano (1994)

Work length5:37

$1.30

$1.70

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

Various Composers

Work length1:19:30

$3.90

$5.10

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

Illustrated talk by Pierre-Laurent Aimard - Ravel and Carter

Track length26:44

$1.30

$1.70

Commentaire illustré de Pierre-Laurent Aimard - Ravel et Carter

Track length25:23

$1.30

$1.70

Erläuterungen und klanbeispielen von Pierre-Laurent Aimard - Ravel und Carter

Track length27:23

$1.30

$1.70

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(+ Bonus CD - illustrated talk in English, French and German)

Reviews

2010

One could expect Pierre-Laurent Aimard's account of Gaspard de la nuit to have pleased the composer mightily: totally focused and attentive to the text, scrupulously controlled in sound and movement, the articulation of the continuity as Ravel insisted it should be, that's to say with the unity of time preserved, in all three pieces. No otiose slowings. Nothing imposed, only revealed.
Be expressive, be dazzling, be magical, be a virtuoso story-teller, but get on with it (as Ravel might have said), and above all play in time.
With the composer looking over his shoulder, the pianist might murmur that there's also the little matter of taking care of every note, intellectually and technically, and of being able not only to play them but to conjure a range of sonority and a rhythmic context in which everything happens at the right time. Aimard might agree that Gaspard de la nuit, consisting as it does of three highly contrasted pieces, is not just hugely demanding but an encyclopedic work, in the sense that the performance of it is the measure of all the artistic and technical qualities of the mature player. Difficult to over-praise his achievement here for its freshness and authority and the impeccable pianistic address, and the only reservation, a very small one, has to do with the lack of a touch of fury, or frenzy, in his characterisation of 'Scarbo': the dwarf is a hideous little devil, not just a mischievous one… The conjunction of Ravel and Elliott Carter may not be attractive to everyone but Aimard sees a commitment to new music as part of his job; would that there were more artists like him.
On a bonus disc Aimard talks well about how the Carter pieces are made, and for people unfamiliar with them this could be a way in. How Carter's pieces are made is very much their raison d'être: his is predominantly a music of lines, of contrapuntal voices highly differentiated in character and movement and in their stability one against another, and how these may be built into structures rich in polyrhythmic effects.
Night Fantasies is the major work for piano of Carter's maturity, and it has a lot going on. It's admirable but unmemorable, masterly music which offers much to the mind but not enough refreshment to the spirit, as if a dimension were missing. The three shorter pieces, in which the play of invention is delightful in itself, raise expectations less and satisfy them more. But in Carter, as in Ravel, Aimard's advocacy is wonderful.
The excellent recording derives from the large hall of the Konzerthaus in Vienna; the acoustic has character and the sound is at an apt distance.

Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit, etc.

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