Pierre Boulez Conducts Debussy and Ravel

Pierre Boulez conducts Debussy and Ravel

This 6 CD Edition presents Pierre Boulez’s recordings of the two French composers on Deutsche Grammophon: DIE Edition for the anniversary year 2012, in which Claude Debussy celebrates his 150th birthday and Maurice Ravels his 75th.

“In Ma mere, he is among the master magicians: subtleties of nuance and timing (previously in short supply) now abound; here is playing of a wholly different order of grace and beauty, not the kind that lingers in passages in danger of becoming too exquisite to bear, nor the kind that parades the score’s exoticism. In the Spanish items, some may find the Berlin woodwinds too cultured in tone and artful in phrasing for their various improvisatory solos: it is rare (and initially unsettling) to hear the first few minutes’ solos in Bolero quite as strongly contoured as this (they are, too, predictably legato; do these players ever draw breath?). I found myself craving a hint of abandon from the brass, particu larly in the le plusfpossible (6’l 0”, horns and trumpets) in the “Féria” from the Rapsodie; and here and in the Alborada, as before, tempos remain slower than average (the “Habanera” is utterly hypnotic), strikingly so in the “Féria” which now, quite aptly, sounds as much like Chabrier as Ravel: festive as opposed to driven and explosive. (Gramophne)