This delightful disc of Viennese fluff contains some marvelous tunes, plenty of enticing waltz music, and heaps of what Gerard Hoffnung referred to in one memorable sketch as “flagellated cream”. The outstanding items are: Zigeunerfest, a ballet scene that doesn’t sound especially Gypsy-like (but who cares?); the extensive and really cute ballet music from the children’s play Peter and Paul in Schlaraffenland; A Tale from 1001 Nights that’s about as far from Rimsky-Korsakov as you can be while remaining on the same planet; the echt-Viennese Suite de Danse; and finally, an imaginatively scored if only marginally oriental-sounding Chinese Ballet Suite. The other items, including the colorfully titled Fata Morgana concert gavotte that lends this collection its album title, largely derive from Lehár operettas or short dance pieces, most of which are long forgotten. Michail Jurowski conducts very satisfying performances, warmly Romantic and tasteful, and he keeps the rather excessively busy percussion (bass drum, cymbals, and snare drum in loud passages, glockenspiel and triangle in soft ones) under control, thus avoiding the potential aural fatigue produced by the textural similarity from one work to the next. The comfortable, slightly soft-edged recording suits the music perfectly.
