6/10
this sounds like a very, very hard song to play. the sheet music is scary - but following along makes the music sound better, because there is so much happening, and it demystifies the technical complexity / mastery a bit. this is a youtube with the sheet music in it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d47dqPYMbGI
i don't really like this piece. I can appreciate the technical skill, but it is too modern for me - I feel like it keeps motioning toward grandeur but makes these turns away, that is hard to have anything that is happening (and there is a lot of it) sink in. i think the complexity of the work is such that it would benefit from multiple listens -- it has been a few tonight and nothing is really sticking. i read the wikipedia page for Scarbo and there's a quote from Ravel saying "I wanted to make a caricature of romanticism. Perhaps it got the better of me." --and, thinking of this as a caricature or romanticism, maybe the fact that nothing sticks, that there is no grand theme / scheme (and instead flares of grandeur strung together in a sort of jarring way) is part of the appeal. Scarbo take the freedom of emotional experimentation / reflection of Grand Linearly-Swelling Human Emotion from romanticism to extents that don't feel human, and don't feel like they are rooted in any personal emotional expression. It's a grasping at grandeur that feels almost jarring, and a lot of work to keep up, but (oh, get ready, this is deep) maybe this is a much better portrait of the Human Experience, and why the piece isn't very accessible. There is not a clear central theme to which the piece can return -- an attempt at romanticism to portray multiple climaxes, fits of grandeur and tumult, and highlight the meandering path to try to string flares together. Maybe that is reading too much into it, but it at least gives an opening to appreciate the piece on another level, even if i don't know nearly enough about music history to be able to fully appreciate what being a 'caricature of romanticism' means
Anyway, this is based on a contemporary poem (which is nice to think about, that interplay between popular contemporary media. think of an artist now being like - this is a piece based on the Carmella Soprano). poem here (originally French):
Oh! how often have I heard and seen him, Scarbo, when at midnight the moon glitters in the sky like a silver shield on an azure banner strewn with golden bees.
How often have I heard his laughter buzz in the shadow of my alcove, and his fingernail grate on the silk of the curtains of my bed!
How often have I seen him alight on the floor, pirouette on a foot and roll through the room like the spindle fallen from the wand of a sorceress!
Do I think him vanished then? the dwarf grows between the moon and me like the belfry of a gothic cathedral, a golden bell shakes on his pointed cap!
But soon his body becomes blue, translucent like the wax of a candle, his face pales like the wax of a candle end – and suddenly he is extinguished.
Oh! how often have I heard and seen him, Scarbo, when at midnight the moon glitters in the sky like a silver shield on an azure banner strewn with golden bees.
How often have I heard his laughter buzz in the shadow of my alcove, and his fingernail grate on the silk of the curtains of my bed!
How often have I seen him alight on the floor, pirouette on a foot and roll through the room like the spindle fallen from the wand of a sorceress!
Do I think him vanished then? the dwarf grows between the moon and me like the belfry of a gothic cathedral, a golden bell shakes on his pointed cap!
But soon his body becomes blue, translucent like the wax of a candle, his face pales like the wax of a candle end – and suddenly he is extinguished.
