Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937)
Orchestral Works – Volume 2
Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911) [15:25]
Gaspard de la nuit (1908, orch. Marius Constant, 1990) [22:15]
Le tombeau de Couperin (1914-17) [16:12]
La valse (1920) [12:47]
Orchestre National de Lyon/Leonard Slatkin
rec. September 2011 (Valses), November 2012, Auditorium de Lyon
NAXOS 8.572888 [66:39]
The good news: Leonard Slatkin comes to life in a characterful reading
of Le tombeau de Couperin. The opening Prélude
sounds a bit runny - the rhythmic foundation could be firmer - but the
interplay of colours is pleasing. Slatkin paces the two middle movements
slightly faster than usual, underlining the dance element in the Forlane
and the easy flow of the Menuet . The Rigaudon is splashy,
if perhaps over-aggressive.
La Valse, too, is good. The 1960s and 1970s vogue for performances
that underlined civilization's mad rush to destruction seems, mercifully,
to have passed; conductors now feel free to play this score for purely
musical values, as Slatkin does. He brings a sense of fantasy to the lightly
scored passages, and infuses the rest with an appropriate dance-like lilt.
The woodwind run around the ten-minute mark is slightly ahead of everyone
else.
Valses nobles et sentimentales is a case of swings and roundabouts.
The rhythmic chords at the start are muffled and soggy. The piquant third
(Modéré) and fourth (Assez animé)
movements flow gracefully, but the fifth (Presque lent), though
attentively moulded, loses momentum. The Moins vif movement,
anticipating the buoyant rhythmic patterns of La valse, achieves
some uplift; but then the Epilogue, less an actual waltz than
a thoughtful reflection on the form, lies there inert.
Marius Constant's transcription of Gaspard de la nuit
is intelligently conceived - such liquid piano writing doesn't
transfer readily to the orchestra - even if Constant seems to have had
Debussy’s La mer, rather than Ravel, in his ear. Here we
get the Slatkin familiar from his earlier series of RCA recordings, seemingly
unattuned to subtleties of orchestral colour and texture. The lightly
scored opening of Ondine conveys no sense of anticipation; the
high-lying passages don't shimmer; the climaxes don't surge.
In Le gibet, the woodwinds at the start draw the ear, but successive
episodes become increasingly static. The chattering bits in Scarbo
are effective, but the fuller passages that follow sound generalized,
the tuttis portentous. In short, we have the sounds without the
music.
The Gaspard transcription awaits a more fully realized performance.
Meanwhile, for durable accounts of the other works, you could do worse
than Boulez’s Sony versions, from Cleveland (La valse)
and New York, with Martinon (EMI), Monteux (Philips), and Masur (Warner
Apex) as possible supplements for La valse.
Stephen Francis Vasta
Stephen Francis Vasta is a New York-based conductor, coach, and journalist.
Previous review: Paul Corfield Godfrey
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