Mohammad Iqbal asked for impressions of this work.

Agreed: a marvellous work.  Mind you, it's not my favourite solo piano
Ravel.  That distinction goes to "Le Tombeau du Couperin." As for his most
endearing piece for piano, I unaccountably love the "Sonatine." All the
same, it's a marvellous work I've heard often, and always in wonder.

A friend I met through this List suggested recently that I listen to
Samson Francois's version of the "Ondine," which I'd bought for Ravel's 2
Concertos (EMI Classics 5 66957 2).  Although I put off the exercise for
some time, I finally did.  I spent hours listening carefully; comparing it
with Pascal Roge's version (my first introduction, years ago, to Ravel's
piano works), and then trying to write down my thoughts.  For what those
notes are worth, I could send you a copy.  In brief, we agreed that this
movement requires from the piano soloist a range that is truly symphonic.

"Le Gibet" is a movement that displays an interesting compositional
technique of Ravel's that's used in a few other compositions: the Bolero,
the second movement of his Concerto in G, and a few others that escape
me right now (the close of the 1st mvmt of the Vn/Pf Sonata?).  It's his
arbitrary imposition, a priori, of musical limitations on a composition:
regarding keys, for instance, or rhythms, or even notes.  It doesn't
take much to recognize that these three pieces all share some kind of
limitation.  Think of the Bolero's unchanging rhythmic pattern repeating
itself over and over again.  Although orchestral ornamentation is there,
so other instruments do add colour and flourish, not much happens to that
overall pattern.  In truth, a shift in key _does_ happen near the end: so,
aside from ornamentation, Ravel has permitted himself this one change.  In
his Concerto in G, the restriction he sets himself for the middle movement
is: it will be a single crescendo and a single diminuendo.  And here, in
Gaspard's "Le Gibet," it's the sound of a bell ringing without any change,
right though the movement.  That's all.  Of course, the devil's in the
details.  The story behind this music -- a set of prose poems by an
Aloysius Bertrand -- is of a corpse hanging by the neck from a scaffold or
gibbet, late in the evening, 'reddened by the setting sun.' I don't know
the rest of the story, why the man was hanged, etc.; I don't really care.
All I know is that the tolling bell and the melodic fragment Ravel weaves
around makes for music that's strangely static yet deeply melancholic, and
that in the right pianistic hands the repetition isn't ever tedious.

I don't think you need to play the piano to realize that "Scarbo" must
be an extremely difficult piece to play, from the point of view of just
hitting the right notes.  And, assuming one does hit those right notes,
then there's the considerable problem of hitting the notes right.  I gather
Ravel himself couldn't do it.  And no wonder: this piece seems composed
for a Lizst.  I'd say it's a movement that gets mangled more often than
most other pieces for solo piano. I'll leave it to others to tell about
the sequence of seconds rushing against left-hand triplets, etc.  All I'll
say about this movement is that its turbulence and dissonance and
percussiveness and diabolical raucousness are delightfully uncharacteristic
of Ravel ...and yet the art and room for nuance within its ten minutes --
again, in the right hands -- could only be Ravel.

I beg off trying to recommend who plays it best.  After all, what pianist
commands that symphonic range needed for the Ondine, the poetry to bring
off the constricted second movement and, on top of that, the technique and
utter control to invoke the wild Scarbo?

Best,

Bert B.