Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe [Hybrid SACD] [Hybrid SACD - DSD]

Maurice Ravel (Artist), Bso (Artist), Charles Munch (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 14, 2004)
• SPARS Code: ADD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Hybrid SACD - DSD
• Label: RCA
• ASIN: B0002TKFHW
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,585 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #79 in Music > Classical > Ballets & Dances > Historical Periods > Modern & 20th Century

Track Listings

1. Invocation To The Nymphs

2. Entrance Of Daphnis And Chloe

3. Dance Of The Young Girls Around Daphnis

4. Dorcon's Advance To Chloe

5. Daphnis Reasserts His Love For Chloe/The Dorcon-Daphnis Dance Contest For A Kiss From Chloe

6. Dorcon's Grotesque Dance

7. The Gracious Dance Of Daphnis

8. The Triumph Of Daphnis And The Ecstatic Union With Chloe

9. Entrance Of The Temptress Lyceion And Dance Of Veils

10. The Invasion Of The Pirates And Daphnis's Unsuccessful Efforts To Save Chloe

11. Invocation To Pan By The Nymphs And The Prayer Of Daphnis

12. Interlude

13. The Orgiastic Dance Of The Pirates

14. Bryaxis Orders Chloe To Be Brought Forward And To Dance

15. Chloe's Dance Of Supplication

16. Creatures Of Pan Appear And Frighten The Pirates, Who Flee In Terror, Leaving Chloe Alone With A Shining Crown

17. Sunrise. Daphnis Prostrate At The Grotto Of The Nymphs

18. Daphnis And Chloe Are Reunited

19. Lammon Tells How Pan Saved Chloe In Memory Of His Love For The Nymph Syrinx. Daphnis And Chloe Act Out The Story

20. pan (Daphnis) Fashions A Flute From Some Reeds, On Which He Declares His Love For Syrinx (Chloe)

See all 23 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolutely stunning recording, October 10, 2004

By 

S. Baird (Baton Rouge, LA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe [Hybrid SACD] (Audio CD)

This is one of two near-definitive recordings of Daphnis Et Chloe, the other being Ernest Ansermet's on Decca/London. The Munch recording offers a little more elan and a far better sound than Ansermet; ideally the music collector will want both.

Munch's recording is part of the legendary RCA Living Stereo series of recordings that date from the fifties, and this one has always been regarded as one demonstrating state-of-the-art sound. Indeed, many of the original recordings are highly prized by collectors today. This reissue in the new SACD medium offers excellent sound from its recent transfer of the original master tapes, and is available in three-channel sound (as well as conventional stereo) for those who own multi-channel SACD-compatible equipment.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the legendary Ravel recordings., August 10, 2005

By 

Marc Haegeman "Marc Haegeman" (Gent, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe [Hybrid SACD] (Audio CD)

One of the all-time greatest Ravel discs now comes in even superior sound quality. Fifty years after date, Charles Munch's 1955 reading remains nothing less than ideal by its totally spontaneous drive, its unerring sense of colour and atmosphere, while the virtuosic playing of the Boston Symphony is quite simply outstanding. The beautifully balanced sound (always a great asset of these early RCA stereo recordings) is most impressively rendered by the DSD technology.

A true gem of the classical catalogue, a clear first-choice for Daphnis and Chloe - not to be missed by any serious collector.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Legendary Recording You Can Enjoy In Wonderful Sound!, March 25, 2008

By 

Doug - Haydn Fan (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe [Hybrid SACD] (Audio CD)

For many American concert-goers during the 30's, 40's and 50's the Boston Symphony was the Queen of orchestras. Honed to an almost unassailable perfection under the direction of Serge Koussevitsky, the Boston conveyed equal parts unsurpassed beauty of tone, extreme elegance, and uncompromising section work.

When Charles Munch took over he essentially was given the keys to heaven, and with the advent of stereo recording he made a number of recordings capturing the Boston still at near the pinnacle of its perfection.

Without doubt this recording of Ravel's majestic ballet for the Corps Diaghilev captures both the full richness of Ravel's score and the unequalled and unique glamor of the Boston Symphony at its best. One might say the SACD offers a gilding of the lilly, so excellent is the regular issue, but it really goes even further in evoking the faintest whisperings of fragmentary themes with spellbinding - I know its a cliche but it's so right - haunting immediacy.

Too, along with great delicacy Daphnis demands moments of supreme power and driving energy, and Munch always had a capacity for tremendous punch and drive, qualities perhaps best heard in his riveting work in Roussel with a French orchestra Roussel: Symphonies 3 & 4; Bacchus et Ariane, Suite No. 2 or (Roussel: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4[[ASIN:B000009Q18
Note: The Roussel Third Symphony was commissioned by Koussevitsky for The Boston Symphony in 1931 for their 50th anniversary - along with a few other works you might have heard of: Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms; Hanson's Romantic Symphony; Prokofief's Fourth Symphony; and Gershwin's 2nd Rhapsody.

Munch had recorded this work, and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique once before with Boston. Both recordings are so good there are those who prefer them to the later stereo versions. However, the genius of these early RCA analog recordings in stereo has to be given precedence.

There have been almost too many other versions of this work to compare this with - the number of suites of the Daybreak Suite number in the dozens and dozens. However the work gains immeasureably by hearing in toto, and this remains the choicest way to hear the entire ballet.

Some have referred readers to the Boulez version. Boulez has given us many fine and remarkable recordings of Ravel. That said, Daphnis requires the urgency of the Mediterranean sun awakening the young shepherd, and Boulez seems utterly at sea before such frank pictoralism. The rapturous efflorescence of Greek Arcadia swells out and struggles to burst the formal structure of Ravels' inherent classicism. The resultant music gives us Ravel's richest outpouring on the grandest never-to-be-repeated scale. Munch and Boston convey all of this with an incandescent performance.

One of the true classics of recorded history.