Maurice Ravel
Le Gibet
No. 2 from Gaspard de la nuit

ID: 1831

The Gallows

Each of the pieces in Gaspard de la nuit is prefaced by one of Aloysius Bertrand’s poems. Le Gibet conjures up the image of a corpse suspended from a gallows in the light of the setting sun, while a bell is tolling in the distance. Ravel´s bell is the B-flat octave that sounds continuously throughout the piece.

What is it – this uneasy sound in the dusk?
Is it the screech of the north wind,
or does the hanged man on the gallows let out a sigh?
Is it a cricket who sings lurking in the moss and ivy
which covers the forest floor out of pity?...
It is the bell ringing by the walls of a city below the horizon
and the carcass of a hanged man reddened by the setting sun.

Background

Gaspard of the Night — Fantasies in the Manner of Rembrandt and Callot is a book by Aloysius Bertrand, considered one of the first examples of modern prose poetry, which had a profound influence on many later French poets and artists. Some of Bertrand's grotesque and nightmarish poems very much appealed to Ravel, who set his impressions of three of the poems to music. The resulting suite is considered to be one of the most difficult pieces in the pianist’s repertoire – Ravel deliberately set out to make the final movement more difficult than Balakirev’s Islamey.

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