INTERPRETATION OF A. BERTRAN’S POETRY BY M. RAVEL IN PIANO SUITE “GASPARD DE LA NUIT”

Abstract

The article reveals aspects of reading by the French composer M. Ravel texts from the collection «Gaspar from darkness. Fantasies in the manner of Rembrandt and Callo» by the French poet A. Bertrand, the concept of phantasmagoricity, which led to the selection of materials from the cycle / suite of Ravel’s «Gaspard de la nuit» («Night Gaspar»). Turning to the epigraphs from the poems in the prose of A Bertrand, Ravel ignores the vicissitudes of the plot, preserving only its main features, an impressive beginning – this is the starting point for creating a cycle. The main attention is focused on the selection and interpretation of the text of the work of A. Bertrand, which suggests that the idea of death combines the poems chosen by M. Ravel. Starting from the definition of the word «phantasmagoria» as «the accumulation of bizarre images, visions, fantasies; chaos, confusion, grotesque», the article considers the author’s vision of phantasmagoria in literature and music. Mystical, fantastic and phantasmagoric plots were popular in all kinds of art. But in music, compared to other arts, phantasmagoria has been the subject of creative interests only since the 19th century. The great prose writer E. T. A. Hoffmann opened a new page in the history of German romantic literature and, at the same time, he gave impetus to the development of phantasmagoria in the opera genre. It was Hoffman who laid the foundation for phantasmagoricism in music by combining the fantastic and the real in the conflict of musical drama of the opera «Undine». Trying to understand these manifestations of the mystical, phantasmagoric at the level of only instrumental music was the purpose of our work. We paid attention to M. Ravel’s piano cycle «Night Gaspar», in which, surprisingly, all stages of development of the mystical and fantastic, which was characteristic of the era of Romanticism, reach a new level in the Impressionist composer. The composer first entered the realm of the mysterious and gloomy, in his music sounded a tragic note, which may have been associated with the illness and death of his father. But Ravel remained the master of his emotions and during his stay in the world of the tragic and terrible, retained full control over the material, achieving perfection in the implementation of the plan.