I enjoyed most of this disc very much indeed. Järvi is always in absolute control, forcing me to forgive one or two moments of unscheduled rubato in La valse, such was the tact and intelligence with which they were managed. Any conductor in this work has to balance the impulse to lilt à la viennoise against what appears to be Ravel’s implicit instruction not to vary the tempo until around halfway. Järvi does it as well as I can ever recall and, notably, his speed for the return of the opening is spot on the original, not faster as so often happens.

His Boléro is on the quick side, around crotchet= 75/78, as against the crotchet=72 on the score and the crotchet=66 of the composer’s own recording. But there’s no feeling of scramble, and the only things I miss are the extra trombone slides from Ravel’s disc, which unfortunately have never found their way into the score. The Pavane is lovely in all respects – steady but not stodgy – and the Daphnis suite has all the colour and warmth one could ask for.

Just occasionally in Ma mère l’oye the balance is not ideal: in the first movement the cor anglais momentarily obscures the clarinet (0'40") and in ‘Laideronnette’ the piccolo, too, is lost in its lower reaches. The only real quibble I have is with Järvi’s handling of the ‘Retenu/A tempo’ marking leading into the final peroration of ‘Le jardin féerique’ – the only moment where his identification with the music seems to falter. But these are small points against the quality of the whole.