Customer Reviews

Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe [Hybrid SACD]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Ravel is my favorite composer, and Charles Munch has to be my favorite conducter. This interpretation of Daphnis is outstanding, follows the score perfectly as Ravel would have wanted. I was amazed how clean this c.d. sounded, this was my first Living Stereo SACD in my collection along with Reiner's Bartok Concerto for orchestra and Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, along with Munch's Betthovan Symphonies and Saint-Saens's Organ Symphony. I love how the chorus blends in with the orchestra, but it didn't sound as though it was behind the stage according to the score. The wind machine at the end of Act 1 is amazing. I've listened to samples on other recordings of Daphnis and none can compare to Munch's. Munch's interpretation is full of emotion (especially in the lover's theme), which is required for performing Ravel's masterpiece. I'm happy that I'm finding great old recordings at great prices becuase I'm not impressed with today's orchestras.

awesome sound, even after 50 years. This is the recording that has yet to be beat.

This classic recording should not be missed by any fan of Maurice Ravel's masterpiece, Daphnis et Chloe. A superb performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under conductor Charles Munch. Munch brings out more feeling, more romance, and more beauty out of Daphnis et Chloe - my favorite Ravel work - than any other conductor I have ever heard.

I have just finished listening to this incredible piece of music, which I was only familiar with thru that other amazing recording I own of it, the one by Claudio Abbado on the Deutsche Grammophon label. The sound of this current Munch/RCA Living Stereo recording is amazing and NO ONE would EVER be able to tell that this specific recording is precisely half a century old! Why only 4 stars then? Well, if you buy an SACD and the flipside of the jewel case reads, *in small print*, that "in SACD surround mode, the music will be heard only from the front left and right channels," you can't help feeling a bit disappointed. Luckily, this wonder of the golden age of recording sounds more than superb, even if it's only coming from 2 speakers. Buy it & enjoy it! There's only so many good recordings around...

I'm referring you to a previous review of The Oxford Companion which includes this recording.

The Cambridge Companion to Ravel is a book intended for the early scholar becoming familiar with the composer's works; it is also an aide for the advanced, and for the totally immersed to refresh insight and review technicalities of works that one is hearing again. It is a much needed step by step accompaniment and appendix for Ravel's highly annotated musical scores, all of which are highly detailed within so the artist is completely sure of his interpretation within the rigidly confined and narrow limits as Ravel wrote them. These restrictions, tempos observed, would rein in overly emoting renditions, eliminating any temptations to go beyond the intellectual crispness, reserving dryness necessary to remove the risk of sentimentality to these compositions. While described as 'impressionist', Ravel's compositions are in direct contrast to Debussy. While both achieve great colorism, Ravel's strophic structure is as classically inspired as an Ionic Column, whereas Debussy's form is openly astrophic and doesn't follow classic models at all.

With this review of The Cambridge Companion to Ravel, I've offered an accompanying and my most highly recommended recording of his penultimate composition Daphnis and Chloe. Without question the composer's most sumptuous score, encompassing the classical tale by Longus, his interpretation is in the gilded and light-filled style of Versailles, of The Hall of Mirrors, reflecting his own vision of it French Style rather than Grecian. In musical history, were he alive today, Ravel would quickly analyze its style as a tapestry of a processional in Grand Moderne Style of perhaps Jean Dupas of the period. It is vast musical fresco or painted mural of Grecian figures imagined as Watteau or Fragonard paintings, not those of rustic pastoral Greece.

The book is enjoyable while listening to a composition and hears the book's meanings and justification. I offer here a CD from 1956, Daphnis and Chloe, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch conducting, with The New England Conservatory of Music Chorus under the baton of Robert Shaw. The author's view is that this performance remains the finest recording of this difficult score. It is a vast musical fresco or mosaic, the most opulent picture of a classical mise en scene. It's opulence has been achieved with the greatest of detail, including distant castanets, claves and the smallest innuendos written clearly in the score.

I highly recommend this outstanding Orchestra Music Companion to any new Ravel enthusiast, or the accomplished scholar.

I cannot give enough praise to the engineer responsible for the original recording. Forty five years elapsed before he would engineer this hybrid compact disc to permanently save an original recording made during his early years! Gorgeous!

I agree with others about the quality of the performance. But be forwarned that this hybrid CD DOES NOT PLAY ON ANY PC OR MAC. My wife and I share a music collection, I play music in my studio on my computer or ipod. But any computer which reads both CD and DVD format will be confused by this hybrid SACD. That spells the end of that technology, it seems to me. I got the slightly older version on regular CD. Sounds perhaps slightly 'thinner' on my HiFi than this version, but at least it plays on my Mac.

This SACD is an historical recording of the " Daphnis" , with Charles Munch that directs the Boston Symphony in an execution that for me is between the best ones that are currently available on SACD. I put it, in my home listenings, in alternative to that on RBCD directed by Pierre Boulez. Timing, tone colour, details, all, in this execution concur to totally render the value of this extremely refined score. Considering the age, then, the recording is incredibly good, including the stereo, with hardly a veil of innocuous rustling, to new evidence that little microphones are often better than many. Optimal disc.

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Questo SACD presenta una registrazione storica del "Daphnis", con Charles Munch che dirige la Boston Symphony in una esecuzione che per me è tra le migliori che siano attualmente disponibili su SACD. Nei miei ascolti la metto in alternativa a quella su RBCD diretta da Pierre Boulez. Tempi, timbrica, dettagli, tutto in questa esecuzione concorre a rendere pienamente il valore di questa partitura raffinatissima. La registrazione è poi incredibilmente buona, compreso l'effetto stereo, con appena un velo di innocuo fruscio, a riprova che pochi microfoni sono spesso meglio di tanti. Ottimo disco.