RAVEL | Gaspard de la nuit: Scarbo: mm. 476–77

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), 42, 105.

40: “Rapid leaps from one range of the keyboard to another require extra energy and may interrupt the flow of both the rhythm and the phrasing. However, a pianist can maintain his energy level while increasing his accuracy and musical expression by dividing notes, as shown, in the measures of Example 22. With divisi fingering, the angularity of abrupt motion from one register to another is lessened by allowing the right hand more time to move.”