It's only a few months since I was regretting the lack of imagination in the Jordan/French Radio production of L'heure espagnole recorded on Erato, and referring back to the Maazel version; and lo and behold, here it returns, in its new CD guise sounding a great deal better than I remembered. The orchestral sound suffers extremely little beside the more modern issue, and except for the opening pages, where the fascinating noises of the automata are much too faint, the balance is preferable, the voices not being swamped; the employment of a wide stereo image, also, makes for more convincing perspectives for the entrance of Gonzalve and Don Inigo and for their lines from inside the longcase clocks. The cast in general are very willing to adopt the quasi-parlando style Ravel had in mind and capture more of the subtle inflexions of the superbly witty libretto—especially the central figures, Concepcion and Ramiro Senechal as the exasperatingly head-in-the-clouL poet who is the only one Ravel authorized to sing lyrically, gives a delicious characterization. (Interesting that, like Giraudeau, who had been the Gonzalve in Ansermet's 1953 Decca recording, Senechal has also moved on to the role of Torquemada in the Erato version.) The DG issue has the advantages over its more modern rival of including a translation and of providing 24 index points as against Erato's nine (two of which are listed incorrectly).'