Having recorded a complete Debussy cycle Gordon Fergus-Thompson moves on to Ravel and, to an even greater extent than in his Debussy, challenges convention at every turn. This is emphatically not the coolly objective Ravel of French tradition but a stylistically luxuriant and provocative approach. Only Gaspard is a slight disappointment with an aggressive response to the triple piano start to ''Ondine'', a less than inexorable climax and finale pages (rapide et brillant) less cruelly exultant than many. ''Le gibet'', too, is coolly paced for tres lent, is less than potently desolating, and ''Scarbo'' is much less fleet or precise than from say, Thibaudet (Decca) or Pogorelich (DG) to name but two. Here there is an ordinary response to some extraordinary music at 1'42'' and a curious hiatus at 3'31'', like a sudden failure of voltage (an editing slip?). Yet in the long term such issues become marginal when heard within the context of so many vivid and highly individual ideas. In ''Ondine'' a chilly, generalized expertise turns quickly to seductive entreaty and the single touch of rhetoric allowed in ''Le gibet'' is superbly placed (3'20''). Elsewhere there is unusual warmth and a constant spirit of adventure. The Valses may seem more sentimentales than nobles yet this performance is so enchantingly liberated and shows such refinement of detail and sonority that you are coaxed into agreement. The iridescent dream-world of the epilogue, in particular, is most hauntingly recreated and I doubt whether this work has often been given with such lavish affection and refinement.
Le tombeau de Couperin is, again, light years away from received wisdom with a seductively phrased Prelude, a wickedly tinted Forlane and a Rigaudon with a central moins vif of the utmost languor and charm. The concluding Toccata may be less dazzling than from some (try Gilels's 1950 Olympia 'live' performance for size) but in Jeux d'eau Fergus-Thompson again shows an engaging flexibility, wonderfully suggestive of a play of light and shade, of Mediterranean indolence. Such idiosyncrasy may prompt raised eyebrows in some circles but for me it has a piquancy and sheer style that show Ravel in a novel and haunting light. The recordings are less opulent than in Thibaudet's recent recording but they are more than adequate and do nothing to detract from one's eager anticipation of Volume 2. Finally, the sleeve shows a detail from Adrienne Solomon's Ondine, an ethereal rather than satanic lady of the lake.'