Maurice Ravel - Daphnis et Chloé; Pavane (Yannick Nézet-Séguin)

Information

Composer: Maurice Ravel

• Daphnis et Chloé (complete ballet)
• Pavane pour une infante défunte

Netherlands Radio Choir

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor

Date: 2015

Label: BIS

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Review

This recording of Daphnis, like the ballet itself, begins so softly that it is not until some seconds in that you become satisfied that it is not a blank disc. Yannick Nézet-Séguin certainly has confidence in the musicians of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra to deliver a veiled, magical sound, and they live up to his expectations here not merely in the hushed swathes of the Introduction and ‘Danse religieuse’ but also in the wider spectra of sonority, atmosphere and colour that Ravel conjures up through his discreet, sentient use of a vast orchestra.

If it is the two suites from the ballet that are more frequently performed, the complete score is by no means a rarity, with notable recorded versions going back to Pierre Monteux and Ernest Ansermet, and including more recent ones by Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink and Claudio Abbado. But Nézet-Séguin’s is a compelling addition. He seems to have this music in his soul, and he unquestionably has it at his fingertips, with a secure hold on the drama, the unfolding of events and the ballet’s cohesive span. Moments of high activity, such the ‘Danse guerrière’ in the second part, are given a terrifying intensity; but then, immediately afterwards, the performance reveals its quiet sensitivity in a lovingly shaped ‘Danse suppliante de Chloé’. A similar, beguiling contrast emerges from the juxtaposition of the ‘Pantomime’ and the final ‘Danse générale’ in Part 3. The Netherlands Radio Choir add wordless haloes to a characterful, involving interpretation.

— Geoffrey Norris

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Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended the Paris Conservatoire. After leaving the conservatoire, he found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles.

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Yannick Nézet-Séguin (born 6 March 1975) is a Canadian conductor and pianist. He studied piano with Anisia Campos at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec, choral conducting with Joseph Flummerfelt at the Westminster Choir College, and in many master classes with renowned conductors. Nézet-Séguin considers Charles Dutoit as his first inspiration as a child and Carlo Maria Giulini as his master. He is currently music director of the Orchestre Métropolitain (Montréal), the Metropolitan Opera, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was the principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from 2008 to 2018.

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