- Gaspard de la Nuit, -

Hello, everyone. Finally, I made it. It’s time to introduce the long-awaited masterpiece: “Scarbo“, the third and the last movement of “Gaspard de la Nuit“. This movement is infamous for its tremendous difficulty (both technically and musically!!), because Maurice Ravel intended this movement to be more difficult than “Islamey“ by Mily Balakirev, which was already one of the most difficult piano works. “Scarbo“ is a small fiend or goblin that appears in A. Bertrand’s poem, who likes nighttime mischief. It makes pirouettes, flits in and out of the darkness, disappears and suddenly reappears.¹ To convey its uneven actions, pianists need to properly understand the poem and the music, and then perform these formidable passages (e.g. repeated notes, major seconds, multiple tuplets) without hesitation. The problem is... the whole procedure is extremely challenging itself. This concludes the series of “Gaspard de la Nuit“. Despite its high level of difficulty, its profound musicality did blow my mind, so I’m willing