Gaspard de la Nuit

My preferred classical music tends to be from the first half of the 20th century - relatively complex stuff. Among these is my favourite piece of piano music of all - the evocative "Gaspard de la Nuit" by Ravel, based on three satanic poems: Ondine, Le Gibet and Scarbo.

The music is virtuosic, one of the most difficult pieces ever written, and I keep an eye open for new renditions of note. Here's a performance of Scarbo by Valentina Lisitsa that is simply electrifying..

Scarbo:

"I have heard him and seen him again and again, Scarbo the Dwarf. In the dead of night, when the moon was a silver mask on a dark wall, the stars a swarm of bees with stings of piercing light; heard his laugh in a dark corner, and the grate of his nails on the counterpane. I've seen him drop from the ceiling, twirl and roll across the floor like a spindle dropped by a dark enchantress at her wheel. Did I think he had vanished? No. He rose up between me and the moon, high and narrow as a Gothic steeple, a great bell swaying in his head. And then his form utterly changed—now blue and transparent as candlewax, his face as pale as the molten drippings—and into the dark he's gone..."