Midlands Classical Music Making

  Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases Ravel, Orchestra Works and Operas: Soloists, Orchestre National de Lyon / Slatkin (Naxos 8 CDs) ★★★★ Here's a musical treasure trove, very well played and recorded, adeptly conducted and at a bargain price. As well as Ravel's orchestral music, both rarities and favourites, we also have a selection of Ravel as orchestrator, most famously in his now standard version of Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition'; Ravel as completer of unfinished works as in the re-orchestrated selections from Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite 'Antar' and opera 'Mlada', with interpolations of his own music for a theatre production, a premiere recording by Slatkin; Ravel the opera composer with his two delightful miniature masterpieces. Slatkin was a keen Ravel conductor in his early days with his St Louis orchestra and if the Lyon forces are less bold and dashing they have greater refinement and subtlety. In...