Ravel: Trois poemes de Stephane Mallarmé

An intriguing, evocative and exotic recital in which Janet Baker joined The Melos Ensemble for a journey through some of the twentieth century's most alluring French compositions for voice and chamber ensemble.

"A most beautiful recital... in (Chausson's Chanson perpetuelle) Baker expands and exultingly finds herself most at home. It's a strong, highly effective performance and marks a measure of the extraordinary way in which she has mastered the always rather special art of singing in French... The contributions by members of the Melos Ensemble - the Hurwitz Quartet, the flutes of Richard Adeney and William Bennett, Gervase de Peyer and Stephen Trier playing clarinet, Lamar Crowson (piano) and, very important, the harp playing of Osian Ellis - are of superlative quality." Gramophone.

Fascinated by children, Ravel composed two one-act operas, L'enfant et les sortileges and L'Heure espagnole. These priceless Ansermet recordings now return to the catalogue, coupled with the rare and much-requested disc of Ravel vocal works with Danco and Ansermet. As a coupling we have the Paris Conservatoire recordings of Bolero (the stereo version making its first ever appearance in any recording format) and La Valse.

28th December 2012 marks the 75th Anniversary of the death of Maurice Ravel, the great French composer, best-known for his beautiful melodies, orchestral & instrumental textures and mesmeric compositional effects.

Many consumers will know Ravel through his masterpieces, such as: Boléro, Pavane pour une infant défunte, Rapsodie espagnole, Gaspard de la nuit, Ma Mère l’oye, Daphnis et Chloë, Le Tombeau de Couperin and La Valse.

For the first time ever, a 14-CD Box Set containing the COMPLETE EDITION of Ravel’s compositions. This is the flagship product, the first time ever that a complete Ravel Box has been issued by any classical label.

In addition to detailed tracklists and artist information to Decca’s high house standard, the 184 page booklet offers full sung texts in original French and with English translation. A 3000-word appreciation of Ravel by Nigel Simeone appears in English, French and German.