In November 1949, at the age of eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF (Radiodiffusion Television Francaise) in Paris and made her first recordings; these were works by Couperin, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. In the following decades she made nearly 100 LPs and CDs, released on ten record labels (Pretoria, Vega, Decca, Atlantic/Finnadar, Pantheon, EMI, Naxos, Marco Polo, Alpha, BMP) and many recordings for radio and television stations around the world. These included the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov as well as the Sonatas of Boulez and the Etudes of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) is now bringing together her past and present recording; as the copyrights are obtained, old recordings no longer available commercially are being released together with her new recordings.

The transcriptions by Liszt of Beethoven's Symphonies, originally recorded for EMI, and the newly recorded 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of Beethoven were released by IBA and also made available in a box set. All the Piano Concertos of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Grieg and the nine LPs recorded for Atlantic/Finnadar in New York which include works by Boulez, Webern, Berg, Ravel and Stravinsky were also released. Among the recent new releases are Liszt's Etudes and the piano transcription of Berlioz's Harold en Italie, Schumann's Carnaval, Fantasie and other works, all five Piano Concertos of Hindemith and, in the Archive Edition, the early LPs made in France for Pretoria (Schumann, Brahms), Vega (Bartok, Prokofiev, Brahms, Beethoven) and Decca (Rachmaninov). IBA is distributed worldwide by Naxos.

This release features three distinct, scintillating performances of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit, plus his early Sérénade grotesque.

REVIEWS:

...the inclusion of three decades’ versions of Gaspard de la nuit allows for some fascinating listening. The third piece in the suite, Scarbo, sounds largely the same in all the recordings and runs about the same amount of time, from 9:11 to 9:25. The nightmarish characteristics of the devilish dwarf are made clear throughout but are never overstated: there is a subtlety to Ravel’s portrayal that Biret captures very well.

-- Infodad

Though born in Turkey, Biret’s musical education was in France, where, as a child prodigy, she became the favourite pupil of the legendary mentor, Nadia Boulenger, her Ravel performances in the concert hall becoming a benchmark of good taste. If we turn the clock back to 1965, when she was twenty-four, and living in Paris, we find Decca, having bought out the French label, Vega—with whom Biret had a contract—offering her studio time to make two discs. The sessions were to include, Gaspard de la nuit, one of the first works she placed in her concert repertoire, and was intended for release on one LP. Sadly the test pressing showed the quality of the sound had fallen short of her expectations, and it was agreed not to publish it, the acetate masters being left with Biret. In recent times, those working in the new technological world expressed the possibility of restoring it to a quality that could prove acceptable to her. That included Mark-Obert Thorn, who has been responsible for a whole raft of restored discs from the 1960’s, many appearing on the Naxos Historic Label. It had to be as a ‘best endeavour’ release, though it does allow us to hear her youthful picture of water in the opening Ondine, where she closely follows the indications in the printed score. Ten years later, and now in New York, it seems to flow more naturally from her fingers, but it is the second, and pivotal picture of Le gibet, the difference is most noticeable. It is the picture of the dead body swinging from the gallows, that her first account has it metronomic evenness, while much slower in 1975, Biret is more intent on capturing the gruesome scene, which she chillingly achieved. Now we reach the beautiful sound of 1984, and in this final instalment we can add together all of the many virtues she has brought to the work in sound worthy of her performance.

-- David's Review Corner

I have an old HMV LP with a youthful looking Andre Previn on the sleeve (9/74 - nla) and coupling the Ravel Trio and Shostakovich E minor Trio, and very good it is; the other artists were Young Uck Kim and Ralph Kirshbaum. Now an older Previn returns to the Ravel, and with new colleagues brings to it the same affection, together with a chaste quality wholly appropriate to this composer who evinced an honourable bashfulness yet whose passion is unfailingly genuine and moving - surely one reason for his immense popularity today. The Trio is one of the largest and grandest of chamber works, yet its rhetoric is without hollowness (and how rare that is in French music!) and it somehow just stays within the bounds of chamber music: oddly enough, one of the most shattering climaxes comes in the slow movement. A rich yet un-glitzy recording helps this intensely felt yet refined performance, and altogether the artists offer a memorable musical experience.

Debussy's long lost piano trio is a youthful work that I'm certain he would have hated to have played at all, but scholars don't always mind about that sort of thing. Having come to light fairly recently, this jejune piece now has several performances on disc. Undoubtedly it needs skilful playing to avoid seeming embarrassingly weak alongside the Ravel, and the present artists do a very decent job, presenting its naIvety without apology. Their disc is not generous at 48 minutes, but the performance of the Ravel above all makes it value for money.

-- Gramophone [11/1995]

Nicolas Altstaedt presents here his version of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s monumental Cello Concerto, originally composed for Yo-Yo Ma, and given its Finnish premiere by the Franco-German cellist under the composer’s direction. In partnership with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Dima Slobodeniouk, he reveals its full expressive dimension here: ‘The first movement opens with what, in my sketchbook, was called “Chaos to line”’, says Esa-Pekka Salonen. Chaos, a metaphorical comet, a rhythmic mantra with congas and bongos, a wild dance . . . Salonen goes on to say of the third movement: ‘I imagined the orchestra as some kind of gigantic lung, expanding and contracting first slowly, but accelerating to a point of mild hyperventilation which leads back to the dance-like material.’

The coupling is the famous ‘Duo Ravel’ (to give it the original title used at its premiere), which Nicolas Altstaedt and Pekka Kuusisto have been performing and refining ever since 2010, and which it was high time to record.

REVIEW:

After the “defining” opening of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto, the cello enters—soulful, almost tonal, and lyrical with long-lined modulations, as the orchestra holds the tonal-like center. In all three movements the orchestration reminds me of Ravel’s: delicate and transparent, whatever the size of the ensemble.

The second movement has a concave shape, with a strong cluttered opening from which the solo cello emerges, flowing to a mid-section dialogue with the alto flute, before bird-like twitters expand to a bed of seagull-like cries (are they string glissandos or electronic?) over growing strings and winds.

The music grows without a break into the kinetic, dance-like final movement. Salonen describes it as “lung music” that swells and exhales repeatedly, as light congas and bongos set the pace.

But what about the performers? I listened twice, and both times Altstaedt was so mesmerizing that I found it difficult to listen analytically. It’ll take more than a couple hearings for me to “own” the work, despite Altstaedt’s consuming magnetic draw. Slobodeniouk is his hand-in-glove partner. Each movement flows with integrity.

The exhilaration and esthetic pleasure Altsteadt and Kuusisto bring to Ravel's Duo Sonata as they respond is remarkable. The opening Allegro is flowing and lithe. In the tres vif scherzo, the duo grabs hold of the insane pulse; the “harmonic sound set” is somewhat like hearing The Rite of Spring for the first time...

Ravel had fears of the sonata “being assassinated by amateurs.” I’ve never heard it more alive than with Altsteadt-Kuusisto!

--Fanfare (Gil French)

Although Maurice Ravel, in his string quartet, explicitly refers to the quartet written ten years earlier by his colleague Claude Debussy, he opts to follows his own new path and arrives at a distinctively Ravelian tone: colorful, refined, and saturated with that flair of the artificial that also characterized his beloved porcelain and glass artworks, ornamental shrubs, and bonsai trees. At the same time, the quartet is meticulously constructed and so rich in ingenious details that it offers room for discovery even after repeated listening. Over twenty years Ravel's senior, Fernand de La Tombelle wrote in a Romantic style against which the better-known composer's work stands in sharp relief.

Maurice Ravel composed many works which stand as classics for both solo piano and for orchestra. On this disc, all except one work were first conceived for piano, which raises the question how it is possible to transfer such pianistic music to the orchestra without making it sound like a mere ‘colorized’ version. Ravel’s orchestral writing was the result of a long apprenticeship and careful study. Although his skills as an orchestrator are much admired today, his ability to coax new sounds out of the orchestra wasn't always appreciated in his own time, however – in 1907 the critic Pierre Lalo complained that ‘in Ravel’s orchestra, no instrument retains its natural sound…’!

Among the works performed here by Sakari Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra are some of Ravel’s earliest compositions, including the much-loved Pavane pour une infante défunte, but the album closes with a later work: La Valse, written in 1920 as one of only four works by Ravel originally conceived for orchestra. The idea of composing a tribute to Johann Strauss had pursued Ravel since 1906, but it took a commission from Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes for him to return to the project. When Diaghilev found it unsuited for ballet, Ravel gave it the subtitle ‘choreographic poem’. It was premiered in concert in 1920 and enjoyed immediate success.

REVIEW:

The ostensible title of this disc is “La Valse,” which is actually the least interesting performance on it. Oramo delivers a quick, lithe and lean interpretation of a work that ought to sound like a decadent, high cholesterol indulgence that explodes in a giant orchestral aneurism at the end. Here, he leaves the music no room to increase in urgency through the apocalyptic closing pages, although the playing is excellent and the sonics, as usual, first class. No, the real treat here is Le Tombeau de Couperin, here given with the two movements of the piano original that Ravel left off the orchestral version (Fugue and Toccata) very idiomatically arranged by Kenneth Hesketh. I particularly like Oramo’s decision not to take the opening too quickly, so that we get to savor the melody as well as Ravel’s gorgeous harmonies. It’s a splendid performance all around.

After Le Tombeau, the highlight of the program must be Une barque sur l’océan, still something of a rarity (even the score used to be hard to find), and I suppose a work that seems to fail next to Debussy’s La mer. The truth is that it’s a totally different beast, mostly dark and mysterious, and that’s just how Oramo plays it. The remaining works are mostly good. The inevitable Pavane for a Dead Princess and the Minuet antique are unkillable, but Alborada del gracioso needs more swagger towards the end. Why doesn’t Oramo give the trombones a chance to inject a little healthy vulgarity into the concluding bars? Of course, it’s not as if we’re short of worthy alternatives in most of this music, but the excellence (and novelty) of Le Tombeau and Une barque make this release impossible to dismiss.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Shortlisted for the Gramophone Awards!

Following their second BBC Music Magazine Award (for Respighi’s Roman Trilogy) and universal praise for their first concert (at the BBC Proms in 2021), Sinfonia of London and John Wilson turn to the orchestral works of Ravel for this their 6th studio album. Not only an outstanding pianist and one of France’s greatest composers, Maurice Ravel is acclaimed as one of the greatest orchestrators of all time. His unique ability to conjure the widest possible range of colors and textures from the orchestral palette is amply demonstrated on this album. The program opens with La Valse, conceived as a snapshot of 1850’s Vienna. The continuous sequence of waltzes becomes increasingly insistent until the sound is almost utterly overwhelming. Other ballets also feature – Ma Mère L’Oye (Mother goose) and the infamous Boléro, both recorded here for the first time in their original versions. Ravel’s orchestrations of his own own piano works complete the program: Valses nobles et sentimentales, Pavane pour une infante défunte and Alborada del gracioso, which demonstrates both Ravel’s fascination with Spanish sounds and culture, and the sheer virtuosity of orchestral playing from the Sinfonia of London.

REVIEW:

What really shines here is the illumination of so many coloristic permutations, sounding for all the world as if Ravel had just in this moment heard them.

-- Gramophone (Editor's Choice, March 2022)