A fast repeated-note passage can feel unplayable once you're up to speed. Boris Giltburg shares two fingerings for the hardest bar in Ravel's Alborada del gracioso, so you're never stuck when a stubborn piano won't cooperate.
At the turn of the 20th century, Maurice Ravel found himself running with a band of edgy artists and thinkers who dubbed themselves the "hooligans." In their honor, he composed his "Miroirs," a suite of piano pieces that depicts various tableaux from nature and culture. The fourth, Alborada del gracioso, was dedicated to the writer and music critic Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi. The most explosively virtuosic of the set in its outer dance sections, Alborada del gracioso is filled with the soulful, perhaps satirical, passion of a Spanish love song sung at dawn ("alborada") by a buffoon ("gracioso"). Join virtuoso Boris Giltburg as he breaks down the work in detail, revealing its character and structure, and dissecting the myriad technical challenges – syncopated meter, rapid repeated notes imitating a guitar, innovative layering, double glissandi, and more.
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