Ravel's Scarbo: How to Scare with It, But Not Be Afraid of It 

His description of the opening as a dooropening squeak really helped me. Imagination.

You know, I'll never be able to play this piece (I'm simply too far behind, nor do I have the time to devote to the task of reaching this level of mastery) but I've loved this piece of music for almost 20 years and this was a real treat to watch a great pianist explain the difficulties of this masterwork (imho, the Holy Grail for all virtuosi) in such an engaging manner.

Playing All of Gaspard de la nuit is my goal/dream on piano. I'm only 14 right and I practice around 7-8 hours a day (Hardest is what I've learned of Chopin's First ballade), So I think I have time and videos like these help me a lot even if im not skilled enough to play it.

Whoever makes the new thumbnails needs a raise 😂

Thanks a lot Denis!! I'm a professional pianist, specialized in "old" repertoire (so-called "pianoforte", or "old" pianos before 1860 in short), and you just gave me some keys that make me confident enough about the fact that I actually could play this piece well!

i'm learning this thing rn and i find that the key to fast repeated notes is to press the key down with just the right weight. too little, it doesn't go down enough. too much, it resets too slowly

I wouldn't say sound effects, but rather sound illustrations.

This is another amazing tutorial!! Thank you very much, Mr Zhdanov!!

I'm eager to see a full recording of this piece played by you Denis ! Is this planned ? Luc

Great video. Professional players will profit a lot. For amateurs, such as me, it is another world ))).

You can and should assist the tremolo with your arm, by vibrating your arm from the tricep, resting lightly on the keybeds, allowing the key to slightly come up with each vibration, using two or three fingers on one key, no switching.

Please never lose your sense of humor with your vids man. Some pianists on RU-vid forget that music should be fun! I’ve been watching you since I started 2 years ago, from simple pop covers to op 10 no 4. I can’t thank you enough for your videos. They’ve helped me improve so much!

Brilliant expose!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As always your brilliance makes this piece less scary than I have ever though. You are the best and most switched on teacher on RU-vid in my opinion!

As always, Denis, your presentations cast light on achieving higher levels of performance. Thanks for your generosity in doing this. You are a very gifted pianist and teacher.

Amazing presentation, thank you

Very good and helpful video. I would know how can you play repeated notes with the same finger so fast??? I din't know how to reach it. I play the beginning rep. with 3-2 as a very very light trill, almost no articulation, and it works. But I would love learn how to play it with one finger. Thanks for your marvelous work.

Great video! I wanted to make a couple comments. I highly recommend that interested pianists get Nancy Bricard’s edition of the score (it’s available for free download online if you know where to look), which contains many insights to understanding and playing the piece. For example, she recommends playing the tremolo notes in m2 using some combination of thumb, index, and middle finger joined together, allowing the hand to play deep into the keys and allowing the wrist to rebound. Playing the tremolo notes as Denis suggests will result in a light, bright sound a la his Toccata or the Alborada del Gracioso - a different character and feel. Denis says you cannot use arm movements to play these tremolos - yes, don’t use your whole arm, but use your wrist and use the arm to support (i.e., rhythmically at quavers). These tremolos are meant to convey the racing heart and deep, sheer terror of the narrator, so it doesn’t fit here to play with just fingers. In my opinion, the m1 melody is not the creaking door; it is the melody of the narrator (a poet or artist haunted by Scarbo) who notices something stirring in his room at night. After the brief introduction of the narrator (m1 and m32, the latter which you didn’t link to the opening melody as a sort of expansion of the narrator’s theme) we don’t hear much from them until m314, where we experience the narrator’s pleading back-and-forth with Scarbo as in Bertrand’s expanded poem. It also fits with the repeat of the opening melody in m395 after Scarbo has attacked the narrator, and in my view bites them and brings them into his dreamworld (m418-477). And, finally, the narrator’s melody makes a triumphant return in m580 after Scarbo grows to his largest size and tries his best to attack. As for your section on so-called ‘atonal music’ in 10:32 - respectfully, there is not one measure of atonal music in this entire piece, and nothing is not far from tonal music at all. Ravel’s Scarbo is entirely centered on tonality, with his own genius additions to stretch tonality to its limit. Compositionally, a major idea behind Scarbo relies on a major second that is placed on the tritone (diminished fifth / augmented fourth) position - for example, taking a major or minor triad (e.g., g# minor in the opening), and adding a sharp-4 and sharp-5 (e.g., D-natural and E-natural). This unifies Ravel’s love for second intervals with the demonic elements of the tritone. This is reflected in the opening chords (in g# minor), the introduction of Scarbo material in m52 (in G major but with the F natural dominant to add even more complexity), as well as throughout the rest of the piece, especially in the climactic Scarbo attacks in m366 (C major) and m563 (our final home key of B major). The reason I say all this is because it is relevant to your 12:23 section on m468 and onward. Not covered in your video is the fact just before this moment, in Scarbo’s dreamworld, we are treated to a hypnotic swarming of major second notes - again, one of Ravel’s signatures for the demonic Scarbo. Then this reaches a climax in which we suddenly see a beautiful rush of a F# pentatonic chord in m468-472 that comprises major seconds on the black keys. It’s a wild moment that is really out of place for the piece! This same passage is then repeated using the same black keys, but instead of being rounded out by the golden pentatonic chord, they are replaced by the demonic tritone displaced major seconds that make up the Scarbo character. To me, this is the glorious part of the piece where Scarbo nearly succeeds in bringing the narrator to his dreamworld, but somehow fails (I like to think he tripped and fell… he’s supposed to be a somewhat silly character too). Although this passage might look like they are members of whole-tone scales, that was not Ravel’s intention. Instead they are major seconds separated by a tritone, which although they will produce the same notes, they have very different meanings, and this changes how you play the passage. Also, to think of this m472 practically as a pianist, you are simply playing each pair of black notes with with fingers 2 and 3 in succession down the piano, and each is accompanied by the tritone major second played both by your thumb. Need strong finger rotation to make this work. Lastly, I’ll note the Scarbo ‘scream’ theme (‘ta-da!), first introduced in m121, is very important to the character of the piece. The chords you played in 18:53 and onward need to enhance the ‘shout’ chords above the ‘ticka-ticka’ obstinato. The ostinato is important but not the main character - here it’s Scarbo jumping out to scream ‘got you!’ much like he will do later. Hope this makes sense. Again, great video, and really informative! It is such a wonderful piece that needs lots of discussion!

I love how Pogorelich plays the opening repeated notes super dry and articulated.

Please do a second cam or above view

The technical and musical challenges in this piece are WAY beyond anything i could even begin to contemplate attempting! But your explanations and keyboard demonstrations are so lucid and insightful, I feel as if I gained a much greater understanding and appreciation for this piece.

Even though Ravel is not my favourite composer, I loved watching your brilliant finger work .

1:30 6:39 9:01 19:14