{"id":36967,"date":"2016-05-25T11:27:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T15:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=36967"},"modified":"2016-05-26T08:49:38","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T12:49:38","slug":"record-keeping-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/05\/25\/record-keeping-9\/","title":{"rendered":"RECORD KEEPING | Ravel: Orchestre National de Lyon\/Leonard Slatkin (Naxos)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Orchestral
Orchestral Works: Ravel Orchestrations, Vol. 3: Orchestre National De Lyon; Leonard Slatkin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ravel: Orchestral Works Vol. 3. Chabrier- Ravel: Menuet pompeux. Debussy-Ravel: Sarabande et Danse. Schumann-Ravel: Carnaval (excerpts). Mussorgsky-Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition. Orchestre National de Lyon\/Leonard Slatkin. Naxos 8.573124. Total Time: 60.58.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ravel: L\u2019enfant et les sortil<\/strong>\u00e8ges. Ma M<\/strong>\u00e8re l\u2019Oye (complete ballet). Orchestre National de Lyon\/Leonard Slatkin. Naxos 8.660336. Total Time: 71.52.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Several months ago it was announced that Leonard Slatkin would end his tenure as music director of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL) with the conclusion of the 2016-2017 season. Slatkin will have headed this mid-level regional French orchestra for six years. During that time he and the ONL have made numerous recordings together, including major works by Saint-Sa\u00ebns, Berlioz and Ravel. These recordings are part of a series that will include virtually all of Ravel\u2019s works involving a symphony orchestra. This latest release is devoted to an interesting selection of pieces written by others and orchestrated by Ravel.<\/p>\n

On the strength of works like Daphnis et Chlo<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>, Bolero<\/em> and the Rapsodie Espagnole<\/em>, Ravel has long been recognized as one of the most gifted orchestrators in the history of classical music. While many composers have orchestrated Mussorgsky\u2019s piano piece Pictures at an Exhibition<\/em>, it is the Ravel version that stands head and shoulders above all the others for its singular originality in the choice of instruments.<\/p>\n

As far as I can determine, Leonard Slatkin has recorded Pictures<\/em> in the Ravel orchestration no fewer than four times: twice with the St. Louis Symphony (1976, Classic Records & 1996, RCA), once with the BBC Symphony (2005, Warner) and this latest version<\/a> with the ONL.\u00a0 He also recorded another version of the piece with the Nashville Symphony (Naxos 8.570716<\/a>), using his own selection of different orchestrations for each movement.<\/p>\n

This newest version of Pictures at an Exhibition<\/em> is also a little bit different in that it includes a \u201cPromenade\u201d from Mussorgsky\u2019s original piano piece \u2014 orchestrated by Slatkin himself \u2014 which Ravel omitted in his orchestration. Slatkin\u2019s \u201cPromenade\u201d, only about a minute and a half long, and quite similar to the opening Promenade, is not a major change and Slatkin appears to have done his best to orchestrate this interlude in the style of Ravel.<\/p>\n

Overall, this performance is a precise and characterful rendition of Pictures<\/em>, with particularly well-balanced and powerful brass playing in the \u201cCatacombs\u201d and \u201cGreat Gate of Kiev\u201d sections.<\/p>\n

The other Ravel orchestrations on this recording are far less well known. The orchestration of Chabrier\u2019s Menuet\u00a0 pompeux<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 a charming piece, especially in its middle section, and brilliant in its orchestral form \u2014 was commissioned by Diaghilev in 1881 from a set of piano pieces. Debussy\u2019s0 Sarabande et Danse<\/em>, also originally piano pieces, were orchestrated by Ravel after Debussy\u2019s death in 1921.<\/p>\n

\"Ravel:
Ravel: L’Enfant et les sortil\u00e8ges \/ Ma M\u00e8re l’Oye – Complete Ballet; Leonard Slatkin, Orchestre National de Lyon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1914, Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky commissioned Ravel to\u00a0orchestrate several movements of Robert Schumann\u2019s greatest piano work, Carnaval<\/em> Op. 9, for a ballet. These orchestrations strike me as more serviceable than imaginative, but then Ravel clearly limited himself to orchestrating these movements in the style of Schumann, using only instruments Schumann himself could have used. In other words, no alto sax, tuba, muted trumpet, tam-tam, or snare drum; that is, none of the unusual colours Ravel employed so brilliantly in Pictures.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ravel\u2019s charming opera L\u2019enfant et les sortil<\/em>\u00e8ges<\/em> (The Child and the Spells), is based on a libretto by Nobel Prize-winning French novelist, Sidone-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954). In a good production, the animation \u2014 squirrels, frogs, cats, chairs and teapots \u2014 is irresistible. On this Naxos CD<\/a>, Slatkin leads a lively and idiomatic performance with a fine cast headed by soprano H\u00e9l\u00e8ne H\u00e9brard as the Child. The performance of the complete Ma Mere l\u2019Oye<\/em> (Mother Goose) is equally good. In 2009 EMI released a CD (64197) with the same coupling with a high-powered cast headed by Magdalena Ko\u017een\u00e1, Nathalie Stutzmann and Jos\u00e9 Van Dam, with Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. This EMI disc also has the advantage of including the complete text; the Naxos recording has only a summary.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Want more updates on Toronto-centric classical music news and review\u00a0before anyone else finds out? Get our exclusive newsletter\u00a0<\/em>here<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/em>for all the latest.<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul E Robinson reviews two new Ravel CDs by Orchestre National de Lyon and Leonard Slatkin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":36970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5723,77,5739,51,52],"tags":[6167,5850,2763],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/81qrQRGjzpL._SL1200_.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-9Cf","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36967"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36984,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36967\/revisions\/36984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36967"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=36967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}