Customer Reviews

Daphnis Et Chloe

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra always give an outstanding and sensitive interpretation to all of their performances, but none that I've heard exceeds this performance of Ravel's Daphnis & Chloe. Performances by former director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, were the standards by which all orchestral performances of impressionistic music were measured. Charles Dutoit has raised the bar by several notches.

You may be originally disappointed in the fact that this CD has the whole hour-long ballet on a single track, but if you're like me, since you listen to the whole thing from start to finish anyway, what does it matter?

When you listen to the expert interpretation by Dutoit with the Montréal Symphony, you realize it doesn't. This is a sonorous, full-bodied, finely detailed, highly sensitive, and wonderfully rendered performance. With the immense amount of detail that Ravel put into each note that he wrote, nothing less is required.

I don't even mind the occasional vibrato on solo French Horn parts, something that usually irks me to no end. Somehow, in this very French ballet, that also doesn't matter. What does matter is that Ravel's choral/orchestral masterpiece receives the most fastidious and passionate treatment it deserves. This is it.

While I've always loved the Bernstein NY Philharmonic recording of the second suite, the sound quality, performance, interpretation, in short everything about this CD is as good as it gets.

An older recording of this but one of my favorites because Dutoit renders this as only one with French blood can, luscious and soaring. I improved the sound quality by ripping a copy to my computer then enhancing it with my sound editor to make a richer sound while playing.