Maurice Ravel / A Little Night Music

On this day in classical music: Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes premiered Maurice Ravel’ “Gaspard de la Nuit” in Paris in 1909. Each of the three movements in this suite for solo piano is based on a poem by Aloysius Bertrand. The piece is famous for its difficulty, partly because Ravel intended the final movement, titled “Scarbo,” to be more difficult than Balakirev’s “Islamey.” Because of its technical challenges and profound musical structure, “Scarbo” is considered one of the most difficult solo piano pieces ever written. Listen to Alicia de Larrocha perform “Scarbo” from Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwShsUpZyyE

On this day in the musical theatre: The 2009 Broadway revival of “A Little Night Music” closed in 2011. The star-studded cast featured Catherine Zeta-Jones as Desiree Armfeldt and Angela Lansbury as Desiree’s mother Mme. Armfeldt. Directed by Trevor Nunn, the production originated at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory. In her Broadway debut, Zeta-Jones won a Tony Award for best actress in a musical. When Zeta-Jones and Lansbury left the production, their roles were taken by Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch. This marked the celebrated musical’s first Broadway revival. It ran for 425 performances and recouped its initial investment. Watch Zeta-Jones perform “Send in the Clowns” on the 2010 Tony Awards broadcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUGkjNTRoNo

Musical musings: The night itself is said to smile at the escapades of the addled lovers in “A Little Night Music,” Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s erotic waltz of a show from 1973. But the expression that hovers over Trevor Nunn’s revival, which opened Sunday night at the Walter Kerr Theater, feels dangerously close to a smirk. It is a smirk shrouded in shadows. An elegiac darkness infuses this production, which stars Catherine Zeta-Jones, in a lively Broadway debut, and the indomitable (and invaluable) Angela Lansbury. But the behavior of the characters who wander through a twilight labyrinth of passion in early-20th-century Sweden has the exaggerated gusto of second-tier boulevard farce, of people trying a little too hard for worldliness. “Where’s discretion of the heart, where’s passion in the art, where’s craft?” Madame Armfeldt sings in lamentation. Looking at the production she appears in, I’d say she has a point. On the other hand, looking at Ms. Lansbury just then, I would say that those virtues still have their avatar in an actress who survived six decades in show business without losing either the craft or passion in her art. – Ben Brantley in The New York Times

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