Ravel

[Belle]

I can't seem to get enough of this composer! First, a magnificent recording with Regine Crespin and the Suisse Romande/Ansermet. I adore the Berlioz and the Ravel, especially "Asie". What range and power this singer had. And the Berlioz has unexpected tenderness, beautifully interpreted by Crespin. This morning I watched a Berliner Philharmoniker concert of "Sheherazade" from Baden Baden and I'm afraid it wasn't a patch on this recording!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGhcPl51L7c

[parsifal]

It was good to see someone who commented on Crespin´s wonderful interpretation of Ravel´s Scheherazade with the now forgotten Ansermet. I bought this record on LP, later on the CD. I love "Asie" too. There is much to enjoy when you turn back to the past. Another great Ravel-recording is Daphnis et Chloë, complete ballet, conducted by Münch from the middle of the fifties.

Parsifal.
Kjell Nilsson.

[John F]

Two favorite Ravel recordings:

Robert Casadesus plays "Le Tombeau de Couperin." He recorded it before and after the War - it's the 1951 version that I know. It begins at 53:10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqArnDN2I5o

The piano version is preferable to Ravel's orchestration, which leaves out the fugue and toccata and changes the order of the remaining movements

"L'Enfant et les Sortilèges," an amazing tour de force, as recorded by French singers and orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel. Side 1 only:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb4yYdrglPM

[Belle]

"Le Tombeau" is a greatly loved work by Ravel; I too prefer the piano version. I particularly love the Fugue. I thought the Casadesus was a bit rushed in the Prelude.

And then there's this magnificent string quartet which is fundamental to any Ravel enthusiast's collection:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieRQyyPowH0

I'm not really very familiar with "L'Enfant et les Sortilèges", for some obscure reason. But I'll take a listen to your link.

And the Trio in A Minor is a perennial favourite. What an extraordinary composer Ravel was!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW5YkhzFd2E

So much to love, it's difficult to know where to begin. Please feel free to add your own choices!! I might discover something I didn't know about.

[Rach3]

Please feel free to add your own choices!!

Quite agree about Ravel.

Here is the Arbiter Records recording ( I think ) of Madeleine de Valmalete playing “Tombeau “ ca.1930 , a time when the work was still “ new” .The “ Forlane “ and “Fugue” my fav sections .Wonderful reading, IMHO, emphasizing more than many the Couperin “qualities” :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFmDWf2b55Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8_xojAY92M

His exquisite and very brief Prelude in A minor for piano,Benjamin Grosvenor,Decca here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQjAV4iqgeU

The Piano Trio another fav, as is the Left-Hand Piano Concerto, which Pierre Boulez apparently called the most important piano concerto, or perhaps concerto period, of the 20th Century.

[maestrob]

Yes, that Ansermet/Crespin recording of Ravel's "Scheherezade" & Berlioz's "Nuits d'ete" is an old favorite; a great interpretation that remains a benchmark for me. I've sung the Berlioz in recital, and there is a line from "Le Spectre de la rose" which will be on my wife's tombstone (if I have any say in the matter!): "Ci-git une rose que tous les rois vont jalouser." Loosely translated, it means "Here lies a rose that all the kings will envy."

My favorite recording of the quartet remains the Guarnieri, but I haven't yet found a favorite interpreter of ALL of Ravel's piano music, although individual performances have hit the mark. I wish Pogorelich had done more Ravel.

Daphnis & Chloe is a great work: the version I most often return to would be Dutoit/Montreal, although the Munch has great excitement, I prefer the more open, less strained digital sound of Dutoit, which has equally as much electricity.

Ravel's other orchestral music was recorded by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski in stunning digital sound for Vox and released on DBX vinyl (later on CD) with the Minnesota Orchestra: Do reach out and find them, they are extraordinary readings.

As for his orchestration of Moussorgsky's "Pictures," Reiner/Chicago competes with Schippers/NY in my player: both versions are excellent in fine sound.

[John F]

As for his orchestration of Moussorgsky's "Pictures," Reiner/Chicago competes with Schippers/NY in my player

For me it's also the Chicago Symphony Orchestra but with Kubelik conducting in the brilliant Mercury recording.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXp3wID ... A4D68F51AA

Next to Kubelik, Reiner seems to me less vivid and rather sluggish.

[Belle]

Please feel free to add your own choices!!

Quite agree about Ravel.

Here is the Arbiter Records recording ( I think ) of Madeleine de Valmalete playing “Tombeau “ ca.1930 , a time when the work was still “ new” .The “ Forlane “ and “Fugue” my fav sections .Wonderful reading, IMHO, emphasizing more than many the Couperin “qualities” :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFmDWf2b55Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8_xojAY92M

His exquisite and very brief Prelude in A minor for piano,Benjamin Grosvenor,Decca here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQjAV4iqgeU

The Piano Trio another fav, as is the Left-Hand Piano Concerto, which Pierre Boulez apparently called the most important piano concerto, or perhaps concerto period, of the 20th Century.

I couldn't get the last link to play as it said 'not available outside USA'. The de Valmalete was beautiful and, as you say, really captured the Couperin-like qualities of Ravel's tribute. He really was the most intelligent and gifted composer and so highly original. I've been trying to pick up and continue a biography I have of Maurice Ravel by Roger Nicholas. I cannot get a handle on it as it's mostly full of music, contemporaries and culture - which is fine - but Ravel remains a curiously shadowy figure at the margins of understanding.

The Piano Concerto for the Left hand is a little miracle, IMO. But I wouldn't agree with Boulez on this as I think that moniker properly belongs to the G Major by Ravel; that sublime second movement!!! I found this one from Michelangeli: and a reduced score to read as you listen to it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b4-rXhKpMM

[Belle]

Yes, that Ansermet/Crespin recording of Ravel's "Scheherezade" & Berlioz's "Nuits d'ete" is an old favorite; a great interpretation that remains a benchmark for me. I've sung the Berlioz in recital, and there is a line from "Le Spectre de la rose" which will be on my wife's tombstone (if I have any say in the matter!): "Ci-git une rose que tous les rois vont jalouser." Loosely translated, it means "Here lies a rose that all the kings will envy."

My favorite recording of the quartet remains the Guarnieri, but I haven't yet found a favorite interpreter of ALL of Ravel's piano music, although individual performances have hit the mark. I wish Pogorelich had done more Ravel.

Daphnis & Chloe is a great work: the version I most often return to would be Dutoit/Montreal, although the Munch has great excitement, I prefer the more open, less strained digital sound of Dutoit, which has equally as much electricity.

Ravel's other orchestral music was recorded by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski in stunning digital sound for Vox and released on DBX vinyl (later on CD) with the Minnesota Orchestra: Do reach out and find them, they are extraordinary readings.

As for his orchestration of Moussorgsky's "Pictures," Reiner/Chicago competes with Schippers/NY in my player: both versions are excellent in fine sound.

Your beautiful proposed tribute to your wife very much moved me. In July my husband wrote me a 45 year wedding anniversary card which said, "I'd do it all again"!! You and I are fortunate.

Agree about Daphnis and Chloe; I have a recording of it with the BPO/Karajan. I'll look for those recordings you mention on U-Tube; thanks.

On my gravestone (and it looks like I'll be going first!) I want my husband to write, "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on" (Keats).

[jbuck919]

Well, Belle, I hope you don't leave us anytime soon.

To paraphrase Churchill when he spoke of Russia, Ravel is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. We know nothing of his personal life, if he even had one. More than a couple of his pieces, which have already been mentioned, are clearly the works of a master, and by happenstance are among he first I ever heard on recording when I was still a teenager. The person known to Garrett (IcedNote) and myself, who may be the most brilliant musician I have ever known personally, once stated when we were grad students together that Debussy's string quartet was a masterpiece (which it is), while Ravel's was a bag of tricks (which it is not). Debussy himself told Ravel not to change a note of it. My friend never changes his mind (he still believes that the Loch Ness Monster is real) and forty years later would say the same thing. If there is a problem, it is that musical impressionism is a dead end, but what 20th-century development in music is not?

Then there is the sad fact that Ravel did compose mediocre music. His most popular piece remains the Bolero, of which he was always ashamed. But again, what composer ever accomplished anything but excellence?

[Rach3]

I couldn't get the last link to play as it said 'not available outside USA'.

Here is another A minor Prelude link ( Sokolov ) I hope will play for you :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vozD-hPHIr8

[Belle]

I couldn't get the last link to play as it said 'not available outside USA'.

Here is another A minor Prelude link ( Sokolov ) I hope will play for you :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vozD-hPHIr8

Absolutely divine little gem and Sokolov is such a tremendous artist, isn't he!! There's something plaintive about Ravel's music and I can't quite put my finger on it.

[Belle]

Well, Belle, I hope you don't leave us anytime soon.

To paraphrase Churchill when he spoke of Russia, Ravel is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. We know nothing of his personal life, if he even had one. More than a couple of his pieces, which have already been mentioned, are clearly the works of a master, and by happenstance are among he first I ever heard on recording when I was still a teenager. The person known to Garrett (IcedNote) and myself, who may be the most brilliant musician I have ever known personally, once stated when we were grad students together that Debussy's string quartet was a masterpiece (which it is), while Ravel's was a bag of tricks (which it is not). Debussy himself told Ravel not to change a note of it. My friend never changes his mind (he still believes that the Loch Ness Monster is real) and forty years later would say the same thing. If there is a problem, it is that musical impressionism is a dead end, but what 20th-century development in music is not?

Then there is the sad fact that Ravel did compose mediocre music. His most popular piece remains the Bolero, of which he was always ashamed. But again, what composer ever accomplished anything but excellence?

Your last question; apposite. Beethoven was forever sorry about having composed his little trifles, "Wellington's Victory" etc. Financial expedience made this necessary. I must admit that I intensely dislike "Bolero" and always have. But I'm always willing to overlook this piece when I listen to Ravel's other transcendent compositions like the aforementioned String Quartet et al.

[maestrob]

Grew up with Charles Munch's recording of the Piano Concerto, done with his niece(?), Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer on RCA. Later on, I discovered Martha Argerich/Abbado, coupled with Beroff in the Concerto written for Wittgenstein, another true masterpiece. What, if any stand out, are your favorite recordings of these masterpieces?

[Rach3]

What, if any stand out, are your favorite recordings of these masterpieces?

Munch also recorded the Prokofieff 2nd PC with his niece Henriot-Schweitzer ( not usual Munch repertoire ? ), at YT, very well done , as well as D'Indy's "Symphony on a French Mountain Air ", a work worth hearing, my D'Indy the original recording, but I suspect also at YT.

Some critics say that Michelangeli's EMI recording of the Ravel G major PC, coupled with the Rachmaninoff 4th, both with Gracis/Philharmonia, are the 2 "best" ever of those works.

[maestrob]

What, if any stand out, are your favorite recordings of these masterpieces?

Munch also recorded the Prokofieff 2nd PC with his niece Henriot-Schweitzer ( not usual Munch repertoire ? ), at YT, very well done , as well as D'Indy's "Symphony on a French Mountain Air ", a work worth hearing, my D'Indy the original recording, but I suspect also at YT.

Some critics say that Michelangeli's EMI recording of the Ravel G major PC, coupled with the Rachmaninoff 4th, both with Gracis/Philharmonia, are the 2 "best" ever of those works.

IIRC, the d'Indy was the flip side of the original LP release of the Munch/Henriot-Schweitzer Ravel.

I've never heard the Prokofiev II with those forces. Hmmmmm.....