The most difficult music for piano: Gaspard de la Nuit by Maurice Ravel

04/01/25 • 37 min

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Ravel wrote something so difficult he couldn't even play it, and he even dared to criticize others' performances! Linda Carducci and John Banther dive into a work that challenges the most virtuosic of soloists, its frightening accompanying poetry, and what exactly makes it so difficult.

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Classical Breakdown - The most difficult music for piano: Gaspard de la Nuit by Maurice Ravel

Transcript

John Banther00:00:00.660

I'm John Banther, and this is Classical Breakdown. From WETA Classical in Washington, we're your guide to classical music. In this episode, I'm joined by WETA Classical's Linda Carducci, and we're diving into one of the most difficult works in the entire piano repertoire, Gaspard de la nuit by Maurice Ravel. It's not just difficult, but the poems they are based on are quite a fright too. So