Ravel The Last Six Compositions
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Maurice Ravel
Label: EMI
Magazine Review Date: 12/1996
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 68
Mastering:
Mono
ADD
Catalogue Number: 565499-2
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Boléro |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
(Anonymous) Orchestra Maurice Ravel, Composer Piero Coppola, Conductor |
| Menuet antique |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
(Anonymous) Orchestra Maurice Ravel, Composer Piero Coppola, Conductor |
| Concerto for Piano (Left-Hand) and Orchestra |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
Alfred Cortot, Piano Charles Munch, Conductor Maurice Ravel, Composer Paris Conservatoire Orchestra |
| Concerto for Piano and Orchestra |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
(Anonymous) Orchestra Marguerite Long, Piano Maurice Ravel, Composer Pedro de Freitas Branco, Conductor |
| Don Quichotte à Dulcinée |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
(Anonymous) Orchestra Martial Singher, Baritone Maurice Ravel, Composer Piero Coppola, Conductor |
| Ronsard à son âme |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
(Anonymous) Orchestra Martial Singher, Baritone Maurice Ravel, Composer Piero Coppola, Conductor |
Author: Lionel Salter
If one wanted to quibble, these aren’t exactly Ravel’s “last six compositions, 1928-34”, as the disc proclaims, since Ronsard a son ame had been written in 1924, and the Menuet antique, Ravel’s first published work, dates from 1895; but his orchestrations of them were indeed made in his last period. The historic feature of this assemblage is that several of the works – Bolero, the G major Concerto and the songs – were being recorded not only for the first time but under the eagle eye of the composer, who, as Marguerite Long relates, was extremely exigent.
He was insistent that there should be no speeding-up towards the end of Bolero, and quarrelled with Toscanini about his overall tempo for it: very striking here are the deliberate pace adopted (actually slowing down on the original third 78rpm side) and, I’m afraid, the lacklustre absence of any thrill at that traumatic change from C major to E just before the close. (There is an uncomfortable join at 8'30'', the end of the original second side.) Ravel also quarrelled with Paul Wittgenstein about the liberties he took with the left-hand Concerto he had commissioned. Cortot, who had been a fellow-student of the composer at the Conservatoire, sticks to the text but, despite a breathtaking claim that he “was admirably equipped to meet the formidable demands of a work that calls for supreme virtuosity”, is hopelessly out of his depth technically, as the initial cadenza and numerous fumbled passages make painfully obvious.
It is a relief to turn from this sadly incompetent display, and from a disagreeably acid and shrill 1930 recording of the Menuet antique, to Marguerite Long’s authoritative reading (unfortunately with an inferior anonymous and thinly recorded orchestra) of the G major Concerto (her sensitive playing of the slow movement’s opening solo is a model for all pianists to study), and – far and away the best things on this disc – Martial Singher’s superlative performances of the delicate Ronsard song (the opening so like that ofL’enfant et les sortileges) and the songs written for Pabst’s Don Quixote film which some crass potentate discarded.'
He was insistent that there should be no speeding-up towards the end of Bolero, and quarrelled with Toscanini about his overall tempo for it: very striking here are the deliberate pace adopted (actually slowing down on the original third 78rpm side) and, I’m afraid, the lacklustre absence of any thrill at that traumatic change from C major to E just before the close. (There is an uncomfortable join at 8'30'', the end of the original second side.) Ravel also quarrelled with Paul Wittgenstein about the liberties he took with the left-hand Concerto he had commissioned. Cortot, who had been a fellow-student of the composer at the Conservatoire, sticks to the text but, despite a breathtaking claim that he “was admirably equipped to meet the formidable demands of a work that calls for supreme virtuosity”, is hopelessly out of his depth technically, as the initial cadenza and numerous fumbled passages make painfully obvious.
It is a relief to turn from this sadly incompetent display, and from a disagreeably acid and shrill 1930 recording of the Menuet antique, to Marguerite Long’s authoritative reading (unfortunately with an inferior anonymous and thinly recorded orchestra) of the G major Concerto (her sensitive playing of the slow movement’s opening solo is a model for all pianists to study), and – far and away the best things on this disc – Martial Singher’s superlative performances of the delicate Ronsard song (the opening so like that of
Ravel The Last Six Compositions
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