http://www.google.com/search?q=ravel+gaspard+de+la+nuit

The first link is very informative and has a lot of good info on the poems
the music was based on.

Gaspard to me is one of the most powerful pieces of music ever composed.
While I was at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music I played the second
movement (Le Gibet) for one of my professors who had never heard the piece
before (!) and upon hearing it he said "I think that has to be one of the
saddest pieces of music I've ever heard".  It's made even more powerful
when you read the poem and imagine the picture Ravel is trying to convey.
The last line of the poem Le Gibet, combined with this music, always brings
a lump to my throat:  "It is the bell ringing by the walls of a city below
the horizon, and the carcass of a hanged man reddened by the setting sun."

Sam McGrath
http://www.dnai.com/~sammy