The outstanding item on this otherwise unremarkable program is Marius Constant’s wholly convincing 1990 orchestration of Gaspard de la nuit. It goes without saying that the final movement, Scarbo, lacks some of the sheer tension and bravura of the technically demanding keyboard original when transferred to the orchestra, but in all other respects you would be hard-pressed not to regard this as a typical Ravel showpiece. After all, most of his other orchestral music started out as piano originals too.
Although this program looks fine on paper, the performances are no better than they were in the first release. The Lyon orchestra plays with little or no character despite Leonard Slatkin’s best efforts to keep things moving smartly, and the performances are dully recorded to boot. There’s something very unsettling about the rhythmic vigor that Slatkin obviously invests in the opening of the Valses nobles et sentimentales, compared with the flatness of the audible result. Is it a problem with the engineering? The dynamically restricted playing? Who knows?
I can say that the oboe solo at the start of Le tombeau de Couperin flows like water, and with about as much personality. The climaxes of La valse fail to capture the music’s apocalyptic fury. You can tell that everyone is going through the motions, but there seems to be a filter between the music and the listener that turns this particular apocalypse into the zombie variety. It’s very strange, and not at all enjoyable, especially in music so frequently recorded. We just don’t need this.
