Ravel: Orchestral Works—Le Tombeau de Couperin; Ma Mère l’Oye; La Valse; Une Barque sur l’Océan; Pavane pour une Infante Défunte; Alborada del Gracioso; Rapsodie Espagnole; Boléro; Daphnis et Chloé. Orchestre National de France conducted by Cristian Mɑ̌celaru. Naïve. $33.99 (3 CDs).
The sesquicentennial of Maurice Ravel’s birth has not gotten as much attention as it deserves, although at least this anniversary of Ravel’s birth year has not gone as neglected as has the 2025 Johann Strauss Jr. bicentennial. Ravel’s musical production was comparatively modest, but a considerable percentage of what he wrote has become thrice-familiar through recordings – which Ravel himself identified as a useful method to bring music to a wider audience, personally supervising or taking part in many early recorded releases of his pieces.
The top-notch new three-CD Naïve release of popular Ravel works, featuring Orchestre National de France under its music director, Cristian Mɑ̌celaru, goes some distance to redressing the comparative Ravel attention deficit. An exceptionally well-presented and cleverly designed case that eschews plastic altogether in favor of a four-foldout cardboard package beautifully illustrated with costume and stage designs for the Daphnis et Chloé ballet, this recording shows throughout that the worldwide homogenization of orchestral sound has not, thank goodness, affected Orchestre National de France. There is a subtle but unmistakable “Frenchness” to all the performances here, a fluidity of rhythm, an understanding of the delicate pictorial touches that have led so many commentators to number Ravel among the Impressionists (although he himself rejected that label). Mɑ̌celaru seems to have an instinctive feeling for exactly the right tempo choices and tempo variations in Ravel’s music – which means, of course, that what he does is not driven by instinct but is very carefully planned, chosen and rehearsed. The recognizably Ravel-ian use of individual instruments and orchestral sections is pervasive in these recordings, with every nuance – and there are many – addressed with care and understanding.
The three-disc set opens with Le Tombeau de Couperin, which here includes the four movements that Ravel orchestrated in 1919, plus two orchestrated with considerable finesse by David Molard Soliano in 2021. Ma Mère l’Oye speaks with delicacy and just-right touches of exoticism, and Mɑ̌celaru is sensitive throughout to the fact that this is a ballet: everything is paced and rhythmically emphasized in danceable fashion. La Valse, which concludes the first CD, opens with unusual depth of darkness, the lightness and rhythmic regularity of the dance appearing only gradually and hesitantly but sounding suitably bright when it does emerge. However, the performance retains a crepuscular quality throughout, to a greater extent than is usually heard, with the result that when the final collapse occurs, it has been foretold for pretty much the whole piece – an unusual and effective approach to this well-worn work.
Une Barque sur l’Océan, the third of the five Miroirs, opens the second disc, with Măcelaru taking to heart its designation, “très souple de rythme,” resulting in a performance whose ebb and flow beautifully capture the feeling of wave motion. Ravel may not, strictly speaking, have been an Impressionist, but some of his pieces certainly carry strong musical/pictorial elements, and that is very much the case in this reading. It is followed by Pavane pour une Infante Défunte, one of the most-familiar of all Ravel’s works, which here meanders in gentle quietude without seeking to express deep sorrow – the piece was never an elegy but was intended to represent a long-dead princess dancing at a Spanish court in olden times. Ravel wanted the Pavane played slowly, and to Mɑ̌celaru’s credit, that is just how he paces it – but without losing a sense of forward motion or the underlying concept of this being very old-fashioned dance music. The sensitivity comes through quite clearly. And the tenuous Spanish connection of this work then leads into several Ravel pieces with more-direct ties to Spain. Alborada del Gracioso, the fourth of the Miroirs, has all the brightness and clear Spanish rhythms that are absent from the Pavane, and Mɑ̌celaru’s especially effective handling of individual-instrument touches (bassoon, timpani, trumpet and others) gives the Alborada just the right scintillant colors. And then come the four movements of Rapsodie Espagnole, balanced and counterbalanced here with remarkable sensitivity. It is interesting that after the first movement in “very moderate” tempo (très modere), all the others are designated using the word assez, “quite.” So Ravel’s intent is not merely to have performers do things at quick or slow tempos, but to have them almost overdo the designated speeds to at least some extent. This requires a certain level of abandon in the second and fourth movements, a kind of stretching of time in the third. Mɑ̌celaru “gets” this, knowing how to push things just a bit, but not too much – resulting in a thoroughly satisfying performance. And then this disc concludes with Boléro, that easy-to-underestimate 15-minute crescendo that goes on seemingly forever, gradually metamorphosing into something explosive. Mɑ̌celaru keeps the pace appropriately moderate while focusing on the individual instrumental touches that give Boléro so much of its color. It comes across in this performance as a more-upbeat counterpart of La Valse, with Boléro slowly (but not too slowly) growing brighter and brighter, more and more rhythmically emphatic, until eventually exploding into near-overwhelming brilliance – as effective a performance as is available anywhere.
The third CD in this set is entirely devoted to the complete ballet Daphnis et Chloé, in which Orchestre National de France is joined by Chœur de Radio France. Having already shown his bona fides in other Ravel ballet scores, Mɑ̌celaru manages this nearly hour-long atmospheric retelling of the Greek myth with fine pacing, expressive engagement and great sensitivity throughout. The story of the goatherd Daphnis and shepherdess Chloé, both adopted as infants, becoming lovers, torn apart by pirates but eventually reunited with the help of the god Pan, is pastoral and naïve and told musically by Ravel through a wide variety of dances: emphatic, grotesque, genial, graceful, slowly sinuous, and concluding with the vigorous bacchanale. Mɑ̌celaru keeps the music flowing appealingly from start to finish, staying fully aware of the coloristic elements of the score – including the use of the wordless chorus to help with scene-setting. Ravel called this ballet, his longest work, a symphonie chorégraphique, and while it is certainly no symphony, Mɑ̌celaru carefully explores the symphonic as well as the rhythmic and danceable elements in its construction. Thus, the ballet’s four leitmotifs are clear when they appear and help unify the totality of the work; but the dance episodes, of which there are many, remain the primary communicative elements of the music. Mɑ̌celaru allows Ravel’s pinpoint touches of orchestration to help limn the various scenes and moods, ensuring a pervasive sense of gracefulness and lyrical beauty throughout. The ebullient concluding bacchanale caps a performance that, like all the others in this first-rate Ravel tribute, showcases Mɑ̌celaru’s deep and intuitive understanding of Ravel; Orchestre National de France’s handling of all the composer’s music with stylish understanding; and the uniquely French touches in the playing and interpretations, which cement this sesquicentennial tribute to the composer as a release positively permeated by Gallic panache.
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