Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé - Suite No. 2

After a highly successful debut with the London Symphony Orchestra in December 1927, John Barbirolli became the youngest ever conductor to direct a Royal Philharmonic Society concert – he was 29. He chose Debussy’s La Mer, which had not been played in London for ten years. The orchestra needed more time on the unfamiliar score, so Barbirolli paid for an extra rehearsal out of his own pocket; the cost was almost as much as his fee for the whole concert.

Barbirolli continued to serve French music with care and devotion for the rest of his life. At his last concert with the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, in May 1970, he conducted Ravel’s Mother Goose suite. The Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz became a central work in Barbirolli’s repertoire. He conducted it at two important events in the Hallé’s history – the first concert given in the new Free Trade Hall, Manchester in 1951 and then two years later he conducted the work at the Hallé’s first ever Prom concert.

Barbirolli’s classic recording of Symphonie fantastique is now restored to the catalogue along side three pieces from Le Damnation de Faust. A bonus track includes a rehearsal sequence (Menuet des follets) from this recording session.

The long-time dictator of the Boston Symphony appeared at Carnegie hall in early 1942 in a series of historic concerts that breathed new life into the moribund New York Philharmonic. TIME Magazine had nicknamed them “The Dead End Kids”, and Koussevitzky had just two weeks to whip this recalcitrant band of notorious musical delinquents into shape: quite a few of the younger members had been called up for military service and were replaced by new players. This new release documents this difficult period in the New York Phil’s history.

The best of Ravel, Ravel's greatest hits - they're all here on 2 CDs packed to the brim, containing all of Ravel's most memorable tunes.

Inevitably, the focus is on the immortal Bolero, beloved of the film industry. Ravel famously considered it to be his masterpiece, but claimed it had no music in it - an opinion with which many would take leave to disagree.

La Valse extends the theme of dance, the Rhapsodie espagnole the theme of Spanishry and exoticism, while the compilation ends with a flavour of jazz as exemplified in the Blues movement from the Violin Sonata and the Concerto for piano, left hand (which in the 1930s the famous pianist Alfred Cortot dared to play using both hands, incurring the composer's wrath).

Gloriously spectacular, yet exquisitely subtle, the orchestral music of Ravel requires players who can render its iridescent colours and intoxicating rhythms with both exuberance and accuracy. The conductor, meanwhile, must define its characteristic interplay of sensuality and delicacy, exhilaration and restraint, sentiment and irony. Here, in five of Ravel’s best-loved scores, The Philadelphia Orchestra and Riccardo Muti prove masterly in capturing the composer’s spirit and in evoking his exotic worlds.

Bernard Haitink revisited the music of Ravel on recordings several times in his career, both with ‘his’ Concertgebouw Orchestra as well as with the Boston Symphony. While many of these recordings have been reissued, his earliest, and in a way, most exciting accounts of the music of Ravel, made in 1961, have never appeared internationally on CD. They include a blazing account of the second Daphnis et Chloé suite, the Pavane, Alborado and Rapsodie espagnole. In 1971 he re-recorded the two Daphnis suites and it is from these sessions that the First Suite is taken to complete this very valuable reissue.

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.