These performances are uniformly outstanding. Alicia de Larrocha’s natural feel for the subtlety and elegance of French music serves her particularly well in both Ravel concertos. She positively sparkles in the outer movements of the G major and catches the innocent simplicity of the central Adagio assai with complete success. She’s also remarkable in the “Left Hand” concerto, particularly given her notoriously small reach. It almost sounds easy. Both the Fauré and Franck were works that Larrocha made almost as much her own as Nights in the Gardens of Spain, and her supple, fluent account of the latter remains one of the finest since Rubinstein. Sonically this latest transfer sounds brighter than the original LPs, but these always were very successful recordings, rich and opulent but with no loss of detail. The opening of the Left Hand concerto, so often simply murky, is particularly well captured. This is an outstanding disc that never should have disappeared from the catalog, and at budget price it’s a steal. [1/28/2005]
