BaL 19.02.11 Ravel: Alborada del gracioso

[doversoul1]

It may not have been the most poetic or philosophical BAL but I enjoyed Rob’s talks on practical points of performances. I wonder, though, if you can call this a building a library which, I assume to mean, is to recommend a CD. Would you go and buy a CD for a work of eight minutes irrespective of everything else on the disc?

I would love to see a BAL on short works from time to time, more than the usual brief surveys on the New Release slot. But I think it has to be a different format from the current one so that the BAL can actually recommend a CD rather than a particular performance of one work. May be to look at collections or projects with the main work in common? All those wonderful early Baroque works… (hint, hint ).

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

I'm surprised that Ansermet is only available as a download these days, I thought that it was on Australian Eloquence, I'll have to check.

His stereo version is only available as a download. The Australian Eloquence disc is a mono recording from 1951, of which I am very fond. The instrumental colours are wonderful - very French - the sort you don't tend to get any more due to the homogenization of orchestral sound.

[Ferretfancy]

Il Grande Inquisitor

Thanks for the information on the Ansermet mono, Decca published an Ansermet Edition on CD some years ago, which wasn't in circulation for long, and I have the stereo version from that series. I have been getting some of the Eloquence series, including the Jacqueline Blancard performances of the two concertos, which were the only LP recordings for a long time, and I got to know the music through them. Unfortunately they are something of a disappointment, perhaps I should have left them as a fond memory!
Bws.
Ferret

[Flosshilde]

But I have to register my amazement that Boulez was the victor. I never found his version Spanish-sounding enough - in fact I thought he was fighting against the Spanish elements all the way through.

I don't know the piece, & didn't listen to the BAL on it, but surely it's a French composer's interpretation of a Spanish subject or theme - so it would perhaps be entirely appropriate to have a French conductor's interpretation of it - even if it wasn't 'spanish-sounding enough' - whatever that might mean

[Bryn]

Well I have listened carefully now and am reinforced in my view that the only version worth hearing until Ida records it is that broadcast on Radio 4 (Dutch Radio 4 that is) last week, an arrangement for 2 marimbas by Rachel Zhang and Laurent Warnier.

[Alf-Prufrock]

I don't know the piece, & didn't listen to the BAL on it, but surely it's a French composer's interpretation of a Spanish subject or theme - so it would perhaps be entirely appropriate to have a French conductor's interpretation of it - even if it wasn't 'spanish-sounding enough' - whatever that might mean

I too think it entirely appropriate to have a French conductor's view - and indeed of any piece of music. For example, I love the interpretations of Alborada by Cluytens, Martinon and (less so) Tortelier Y.P., which I actually possess.

Concerning whatever Spanish-sounding might mean, I think nearly all of us would recognise an echt-Viennese performance of a Johann Strauss work, and I trust that many of us would also recognise a Spanish-flavoured performance in its rhythm, colour, subtle rubato, and slancio. At least I hope so.

And yes, I know that Cluytens was Belgian.