RAVEL | Gaspard de la nuit: Scarbo: mm. 433–35

SPECIAL COLLECTION | Dorothy Brandwein’s Ravel Fingerings

Published on 4/30/2022 with the author’s permission

First appeared in Dorothy Woster Brandwein, "Divisi Fingering in Selected Passages from Ravel's Solo Piano Works" (DMA diss., University of Missouri–Kansas City, 1981), 23, 50, 103.

23: “In Example 1 from ‘Scarbo,’ constantly changing thirty-second note patterns written for the right hand must be played smoothly and rapidly. When the left hand plays the highest note in each group, as shown, the level of difficulty is significantly diminished.

50: “Ravel experimented with the effect which is produced when two harmonies are repeated in rapid succession at the softest dynamic level possible. Divisi fingering allows the pianist to easily coordinate the rapid alternation of the two sonorities by playing the chords as shown in Example 33.”