Les deux pigeons is a score of such tunefulness and refinement that it is surprising it has taken Bonynge so long to get round to it. The ballet suite has cropped up on LP on occasions, and there have been two previous full-length versions. A short-lived EMI recording (9/84) offered a version described as ''revised and enriched'' by John Lanchbery, and there is also a 1987 Paris Opera recording conducted by Michel Queval on the Cybelia label ((CD) CY819). This new Bonynge version seems to use the same (presumably authentic) score as the Cybelia and is presumably complete. It is more consistently well engineered, but I don't altogether find the performance more winning. Queval achieves greater fluency, and he and his orchestra seem more inside the score. By contrast Bonynge, by seeking to bring out the charm of the score loses much of its excitement. His sometimes unduly slow tempos account at least partly for the 13 minutes longer duration of this Decca version. At the end of the day, it's such a marvellous score that any purchaser of the new version should still be well rewarded.'