I've been working on Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit", which contains the movement "Ondine", for some time now and have been enjoying listening to the many interpretations of this great work. Aimard is one of my favorite interpreters of French piano music and I feel grateful to have found this quality video which clearly demonstrates the special technique required to produce a convincing performance of this work.
Ondine is based on a poem by Aloysius Bertrand. The poem is a tale of a water fairy who tries to seduce a man to join her and be her mate in her kingdom in the sea. She does this by singing her beautiful and repetitively hypnotic song which parallels the Sirens of Homer's Odyssey. Ravel musically interprets this poem in such a perfect way. The piano piece has essentially only two elements: the water and the water fairy's song. The genius of this work is in the way Ravel melds the music of 'the water' with the 'fairy's song'. This song is immersed in splashes, ripples, and waves that draw the listener into this mythical world.
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