The exciting young conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who succeeded Valery Gergiev as Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra last season, makes his EMI Classics debut with the Orchestra in an all-Ravel programme. The repertoire features the composer’s greatest orchestral works: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, Valses nobles et sentimentales, La Valse and Ma mère l’Oye.
For Nézet-Séguin, Maurice Ravel is the greatest orchestrator French music has ever had: “It’s all about colours” Yannick says, “and the contrast between intimacy and grandness, La Valse being one of his greatest and most powerful symphonic poems and the Valses nobles et sentimentales being much more intimate (…).Daphnis and Chloe is one of his most uplifting and triumphant works while Ma mère L’Oye is so intimate.” This disc explores the enormous variety of Ravel’s orchestral music through three of his particular themes: his fascination with childhood; his interest in the culture and character of Ancient Greece; and a near obsession with waltzes of all kinds. Indeed the collection is suffused with dance, ballet and rhythmic energy.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin (b Montreal, 1975) studied piano, chamber music, composition and conducting at the Conservatoire de Musique du Québec and choral conducting at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J. He took master classes with leading conductors, among them Carlo Maria Giulini. After receiving the Virginia-Parker Award in 2000, he was invited to conduct all the major Canadian orchestras. He continues to work regularly with the Toronto Symphony and was Principal Guest Conductor of the Victoria Symphony from 2003-2008.
“…the Daphnis et Chloé Second Suite is given a gem of a performance, the opening dawn sequence unravelling like a luxuriant carpet, the principal climax truly momentous. This is a sultry, insinuating Daphnis, stronger on seduction than on translucency, a performance steeped in a sense of theatre, very dynamically recorded. It's the crowning glory of a fine and compelling programme...” Gramophone Magazine, December 2009
“Nézet-Séguin’s ear for Ravel’s evocation of the twilit moments before dawn, and the spectacular sunrise, are fabulous...I’ve not heard a more gorgeously played orchestral disc all year.” Sunday Times, 29th November 2009
“Four of Ravel’s orchestral scorchers — what’s not to like? Certainly not the sensuality with which Nézet-Séguin and the Rotterdam Philharmonic pour over much of Daphnis and Chloe or the instrumental felicities of Mother Goose.” The Times, 14th November 2009 ***
“[Nézet-Séguin] is attentive to the subtle rhythmic flexibilities of Ravel’s music and builds up the sonorities in delicate layers. Above all, he understands that the key to Ravel is not haziness but clarity.” The Telegraph, 13th January 2010 ****
“Yannick Nézet-Séguin elicits disciplined and virtuosic playing from the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, with the superb. Recording enabling all sorts of details to be heard in Daphnis et Chloé. The muted string playing in La valse is delicious, with veiled tone and sighing portamentos.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2010 ***
“This is sensational: Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Rotterdam will surely be one of those partnerships that magically adds up to more than the sum of its orchestral parts....I defy you to not gasp with sheer pleasure at the build-up of the Daphnis suite...Brilliantly played and superbly recorded.” The Observer, 31st January 2010
Gramophone Magazine
