This is an excellent, revealing compilation of Ravel’s orchestrations of other composers’ works. With his own music he regularly worked from a piano score to produce his dazzling orchestral works, and applied the same technique not just to the ever-popular version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition but to quite different, well contrasted works.

The wonder of the Chabrier is its weight and clarity. The stuttering chords that punctuate it are beautifully defined, helped by the playing of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic under their chief conductor, Daniele Callegari, known to opera lovers as the music director of the Wexford Festival. The two Debussy pieces reflect that composer’s own orchestrations but I cannot think even he would have contrived such a dazzling result as Ravel in the Tarantelle styrienne, with some spectacular writing for horn. After that it is frustrating to find that Ravel’s subtle and refined orchestrations of Schumann’s Carnaval stop short after less than 10 minutes of music. Nijinsky asked him to orchestrate the suite for a ballet but the project was aborted. The result is certainly refreshing, reflecting Ravel’s prowess as a pianist with sharp attack combined with delicacy.

The Mussorgsky arrangement is not the weightiest performance but it presents the piece with utmost clarity, bringing out the originality of such points of orchestration as the saxophone in “The Old Castle” and the euphonium in “Bydlo”. Excellent, well balanced sound seals the success of the disc.