Delightful Ravel

From January 9, 2014:

Leonard Slatkin has been really busy recording for Naxos in the past few years, completing a Rachmaninov series in Detroit, and playing French music with the Orchestre National de Lyon. This is the second disc of Ravel's orchestral music, to go along with music by Berlioz. I found Slatkin a bit cool in the first disc, though I praised the playing of the orchestra and the sound provided by the Naxos engineers. This disc has the latter strengths, with strong playing from the Lyon woodwinds and brass especially, and lifelike sound that perfectly sets off Ravel's Gallic charms. As to the direction of the music, Slatkin is perhaps feeling more at home with the orchestra, or these three works - the Valses nobles et sentiment ales, Gaspard de la nuit in Marius Constant's orchestration, and Le tombeau de Couperin - have captured his interest more than those in the first disc. Or maybe I'm warming to Slatkin's reserved approach. In any case, this music is captivating, and provides a delightful and welcome respite from the daily grind.

Disengaged Ravel

From December 7, 2012:

A new Ravel disc follows the first Naxos recording from the Orchestre National de Lyon under their new music director Leonard Slatkin, a perhaps overly-disciplined reading of Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique. This CD has the same strengths and failures as that disc. On the plus side, the orchestral playing is marvellous, powerful and subtle. Slatkin provides a unified concept of grace and colour for a varied group of occasional pieces and more consequential works by Ravel. Naxos production and engineering shines once again.

However, the overall feeling is one of disengagement. The Lyon musicians provide completely idiomatic French sounds, but Slatkin runs through things without enough emotion, especially in what should be a hair-raising piece: Bolero. We're left with a Gallic shrug. In this repertoire, that isn't good enough.

(Over?)-refined Berlioz

From November 27, 2012:

One sits up & pays attention to Leonard Slatkin in this new Naxos disc of the Symphonie Fantastique, his first recording from his new gig as Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lyon. Orchestral colour has always been a key in the orchestras Slatkin has built over the years, and in his choice of music. But for all the melodrama in the program, Berlioz's piece has a very French formal logic, and Slatkin's purposeful forward thrust reminds us that we're listening to a symphony written just a few years after Beethoven's death. Slatkin's approach is a bit drier and ironic, more matter-of-fact, than the intense, almost lurid versions of Munch or Bernstein. In cinematic terms, Slatkin's version would be closer to Wes Anderson than Bazz Luhrmann. The differences are ones of taste, though I wonder if Slatkin has taken too much fun out of the work. I suspect Berlioz himself would have wanted a more full-blooded approach. Over-refined or not, there's no questioning the excellence of the musicians or the clarity of the recording

A fine disc of Debussy for solo instruments & orchestra,

From January 11, 2012:

This is the seventh volume in the very useful Naxos series of the complete orchestral works of Claude Debussy, containing works for solo instrument and orchestra.

The Fantaisie for piano and orchestra is a relatively early work, though Debussy made revisions to it later in his life. We hear the composer's latest version here. It's a slight but appealing work. I like the way Thibaudet swings this music, and Markl keeps things light and frothy and moving ahead.

The other works on the disc represent the mature composer's greatness in creating beautiful and dramatic soundscapes. Though Debussy had to be dragged kicking and screaming into writing a piece for saxophone, you couldn't tell from the Rapsodie that the composer wasn't completely attuned to the sonorities of this instrument, which contributed so much to the special sound of French modernist music. The works featuring the harp and the clarinet similarly present new sounds that would be taken up by generations of composers who made their way to Paris in the 1920s: George Gershwin, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and so many others. With standout solo work by saxophonist Alexandre Doisy, harpist Emmanuel Ceysson, and especially clarinetist Paul Meyer, and strong support from Markl and the musicians of the Orchestre Naqtional de Lyon, this disc is very highly recommended.