Audiophiles and orchestral enthusiasts alike have long cherished Paul Paray’s late-’50s/early-’60s Mercury Living Presence recordings with the Detroit Symphony devoted to French showpieces. Here, five previously available mid-price CD releases are gathered together in a budget-priced box that showcases the conductor and orchestra’s remarkable synergy at its apex. Paray’s effervescent, clearly delineated account of Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony (with the legendary Marcel Dupré as featured soloist) is a classic, serving as a complement to Charles Munch’s more robust Boston reference version. I’m particularly impressed that Paray avoids all temptation to milk the Poco Adagio’s famous main theme, focusing instead on how the organ and string writing interweave. The conductor conveys the wide mood swings of Chausson’s Symphony in B-flat while maintaining a vital, forward moving pulse at all times, and his saucy, sultry performance of Ibert’s Escales remains as fresh and vital as the day it was recorded.
And what a day that was (March 18, 1962), for during the same sessions Paray taped his equally inspired, hair-raisingly executed Ravel Rapsodie espagnol and La Valse, plus an Alborada del Gracioso unrivaled for heel-clicking accuracy (the trumpet’s repeated notes are effortlessly tossed off) and an elegant, limber Pavane pour une infant défunte. Unsentimental briskness and razor-sharp balances also distinguish one of the finest recordings of the Le Tombeau de Couperin Suite.
You rarely will find more zestful and idiomatic renditions of overtures and suites by the likes of Lalo (the composer’s rarely heard first suite from Namouna features lovely work from principal flutist Albert Tipton), Barraud, Gounod, Thomas, Auber, Hérold, Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, and Massenet, plus generous helpings of Bizet (both L’Arlésienne suites, a Carmen suite cobbled together by Paray that curiously omits the Habañera, and the jaunty, nationalistic La Patrie Overture). As a composer, Paray’s natural melodic gifts and resourceful orchestration manifest themselves throughout his Mass for the 500th Anniversary of the Death of Joan of Arc, although a later Paray-led performance on the defunct Carthagene label boasted superior choral forces. Mercury’s innovative sonics wear their age well, and the modest price tag is worth your falling in love with these performances anew, or even for the first time. [1/14/2005]
