"VI. Toccata" of Le Tombeau de Couperin

The Toccata, the brilliant final movement of Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, dazzles with perpetual motion, crystalline textures and razor-sharp rhythmic precision. Ravel himself described this movement of the suite as one of his most successful piano compositions, which makes the task of adapting the music for a different instrumentation far from easy. In our arrangement, we translate the piano’s virtuosity into the idiom of percussion, expressed through a wide range of timbral combinations as well as percussion-specific technical challenges that must be mastered. Ravel employs virtuosity in a way that never becomes excessive; instead, he unites brilliance with balance and restraint, offering a refined celebration of agility, control, and luminous color.