Ravel - La Valse; Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition review I Classical album of the week

The Guardian 100

Les Siècles/Roth
(Harmonia Mundi)
François-Xavier Roth and his period instrument group brilliantly honour the dizzying spirit of Ravel’s Waltz, and the Mussorgsky glows with detail

The third release in François-Xavier Roth’s survey of Ravel’s orchestral music with the period instruments of Les Siècles pairs two works from the years after the first world war. The “choreographic poem” La Valse, first performed in 1920, is often seen as a nightmarish response to the horrors of that war and the annihilation of the Viennese world that was epitomised by the waltz, but Ravel himself rejected such an interpretation, describing it instead as: “the dizziness and voluptuousness of the dance, pushed to its paroxysm.” Roth seems to lean towards the composer’s view; his performance is less nihilistic than some readings, it’s lighter, wonderfully athletic and full of brilliantly lit detail, though still mustering a real punch in the cataclysm of the final pages.