RAVEL | Le Tombeau de Couperin: Menuet: mm. 33–60

SPECIAL COLLECTION | Dorothy Brandwein’s Ravel Fingerings

Published on 5/5/2022 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), 58, 120.

57–58: “Dividing notes between the hands in order to attain legato fingering may enhance the pianist's musical efforts. The entire middle section of the ‘Menuet’ illustrates the difficulty of voicing and phrasing sensitively the melodic harmonies played by the left and right hands. By diminishing some of the vertical motion required in playing the chords as they are scored, the pianist can better control the voicing of the octave melody and sustain the long phrases of sonority.”