The rediscovery and re-evaluation of Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969),
currently being promoted by a mass of reissues of his recordings
on the enterprising Australian Eloquence label, continues apace.
This new 2-CD set gives listeners a useful overview of the Swiss
conductor’s style as showcased in some much-loved ballet scores.
Ansermet, notable for expressing an early interest in jazz music,
was really rather more progressive in his favoured repertoire
than these discs might suggest. Attached to Diaghilev’s Ballets
Russes from 1916, in the following decade he gave the first
performances of important works by Satie, Stravinsky, de Falla
and Prokofiev. But, whatever his personal inclinations, two
circumstances forced him over time to take on a rather wider
range of music.
In the first place, Ansermet remained a jobbing musician focused
on putting the Suisse Romande Orchestra that he had formed in
1918 onto a sound financial footing - and hence necessarily
adopting a popular programming policy. And, secondly, in the
great post-war rush to sign European artists to exclusive contracts,
Ansermet was snapped up by Decca and, over the following two
decades tasked with recording a wide, solid foundation of repertoire
for that company’s ground-breaking FFRR (Full Frequency Range
Recording) technology (later relabelled as FFSS – Full Frequency
Stereophonic Sound). It is often said, in fact, that it was
one of Ansermet’s first Decca FFRR recordings – of Stravinsky’s
Petrushka – that made the listening audience aware for
the first time of the possibilities of the new “high fidelity”
sound.
When, however, he conducted the music on these discs in 1959, Ansermet
was fortunate to have the Covent Garden orchestra at his disposal. Though never less than competent, the
Suisse Romande was never quite in the forefront of European
orchestras and, with the conductor generally rejecting extreme
tempi in favour of those appropriate for real-life dancers on
a stage, the London musicians’ idiomatic and sensitive approach
to these scores is never in doubt. You won’t get the over-the-top
excitement of, say, Svetlanov in Tchaikovsky here, but what
you will get are well conceived and constructed interpretations
that, while not playing to the gallery, are entirely satisfying.
Everything on offer here is, in fact, most enjoyable. Indeed, if,
like me, you tend to have avoided “highlights” discs since your
days as a classical music novice (thank goodness for school
gramophone record libraries, if any still exist!) then you’ll
probably enjoy this disc of unashamed “best bits” all the more.
Ansermet was well known for his empathy with Russian repertoire,
so the fact that the Tchaikovsky scores go very well comes as
no surprise. But both the rumbustious elements of Coppélia
and La Boutique Fantasque (also recorded in full
by Ansermet and the London Symphony Orchestra) and the more
lyrical moments of Giselle and Les Sylphides are
equally successful.
In spite of rapidly approaching their 50th birthday, these
recordings remain very fine with an almost ideal combination
of brightness and warmth. The booklet notes are commendable
too, offering a useful introduction that puts the music into
its proper context.
My only quibble is,
in fact, the short measure. A total of less than 100 minutes
spread over two CDs is really not acceptable in my book, even
when they record performances that will, no doubt, give as much
pleasure to many listeners as they first did almost half a century
ago.
Rob Maynard
Orchestra
of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/Ernest Ansermet 
