Tortelier’s Ravel hasn’t gotten the recognition that it perhaps deserves, largely on account of the fact that the Ulster Orchestra isn’t a world-class ensemble on the level of the Berlin Philharmonic or the Boston Symphony, to name two famous groups that have turned in excellent recordings of Daphnis et Chloé. But the Ulster players are very good, and the simple fact is that performance standards today have risen to the point where a fine provincial band under studio recording conditions can routinely play on a level at least equivalent to, say, the Covent Garden Orchestra of the late 1950s and early ’60s (home of Monteux’s famous Decca recording), or more recently, the London Symphony for Previn or Abbado. So listeners suffering from an orchestra phobia need have no fear on that front.
Tortelier’s performance is the exact, interpretive opposite of Maazel’s Clevelend version, recently reissued on Eloquence. Where Maazel is all clarity and tight rhythm, Tortelier stresses atmosphere and mood. That’s not to say that Maazel lacks atmosphere, or that Tortelier and his band are slobs; it’s more a matter of emphasis. For example, the Chandos recording places the wordless chorus farther in the distance than Decca does for Maazel, and Tortelier has them alter their vowel sounds more often to color and reflect the music’s changing moods. He’s also more willing to caress a phrase here and there (as in Chloé’s dance of supplication), and places less stress on precision of rhythm in the scenes in the pirate’s camp and final Bacchanal. Still, for all its dreaminess, you hear plenty of necessary orchestral detail, and the tempos never drag. The same approach works effectively with La Valse, a dream that becomes a nightmare, here rendered with gusto if perhaps not quite the ultimate impact. In sum, these are lovely, idiomatic performances, beautifully recorded.
