COMPOSERS: Ravel
LABELS: Chandos
WORKS: Le tombeau de Couperin; La valse; Valses nobles et sentimentales; Gaspard de la nuit; Miroirs; Sonatine; Pavane pour une infante défunte
PERFORMER: Louis Lortie (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: CHAN 7004/5 DDD (1989)
Among current collected Ravels, Lortie’s is more robust and humane than Thibaudet’s, less warm and traditionally French than Queffélec’s, but a fine and sensitive pianistic feat in the Lisztian Romantic line. He spins a fluent melody and keeps his rhythmic feeling subtle most of the way. Only at the loudest dynamic levels do clattering chords (Scarbo) reach the brink of violence (Alborada del gracioso). High points include the poetic visions of Valses nobles et sentimentales and Oiseaux tristes, a graceful Forlane from Le tombeau de Couperin, the sustained pace and energy of Scarbo and a spectacular La valse which, according to the notes, is (and sounds like) the two-piano version, though nobody else is named.Robert Maycock
Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin; La valse; Valses nobles et sentimentales; Gaspard de la nuit; Miroirs; Sonatine; Pavane pour une infante défunte
Among current collected Ravels, Lortie’s is more robust and humane than Thibaudet’s, less warm and traditionally French than Queffélec’s, but a fine and sensitive pianistic feat in the Lisztian Romantic line. He spins a fluent melody and keeps his rhythmic feeling subtle most of the way. Only at the loudest dynamic levels do clattering chords (Scarbo) reach the brink of violence (Alborada del gracioso).
Our rating
4
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:16 pm