RAVEL Ma Mère l'Oye. Gaspard de la Nuit

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Maurice Ravel

Genre:

Instrumental

Label: Aparte

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 63

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: AP062

AP062. RAVEL Piano Works. Vanessa Wagner

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Ma mère l'oye Maurice Ravel, Composer
Maurice Ravel, Composer
Vanessa Wagner, Piano
(8) Valses nobles et sentimentales Maurice Ravel, Composer
Maurice Ravel, Composer
Vanessa Wagner, Piano
Gaspard de la nuit Maurice Ravel, Composer
Maurice Ravel, Composer
Vanessa Wagner, Piano
Pavane pour une infante défunte Maurice Ravel, Composer
Maurice Ravel, Composer
Vanessa Wagner, Piano
Vanessa Wagner’s inclusion of the solo version of Ma Mère l’Oye is a nice touch which sets this Ravel recital apart from the myriad other versions. She plays a Yamaha, which perhaps lends itself less well than a Steinway to Ravel’s colourscape, though it is an aid to clarity, not least in the fast repeated notes that bedevil ‘Scarbo’. This is a notably broad reading of Gaspard, the central movement particularly drawn out (two and a half minutes longer than Argerich’s live 1978 Concertgebouw reading). Bavouzet, Tharaud and Osborne gain in atmosphere by being just that bit tauter than Wagner; she does, though, find a good degree of caprice in ‘Scarbo’, although others are more malevolent.

There are good things in the faster numbers of Valses nobles and she manages to convey the vigour of the opening without becoming percussive. But turn to Volodos in his live Vienna recital and the work is lifted to another level, particularly in the more ethereal numbers.

On the whole, Wagner is most convincing in the faster music; in slower numbers her rubato is arguably over-generous. ‘Le jardin féerique’ is one instance, the opening of the suite another (I’m no purist: I have a weakness for the naughty but nice arrangement of this suite for two pianos and percussion). That’s something that particularly afflicts the Pavane pour une infante défunte, a piece that Osborne and Bavouzet in their different ways realise much more effectively.

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