This compilation will
be self-recommending according to the
desirability of the content list as
in the header above. It is of course
a ‘pop’ classics compilation; quite
unadventurous apart from the Poulenc
(see comments below) so I will concentrate
first on a general grouse about such
compilations. Telarc tell me that this
compilation is being marketed at mid-price
similar to another compilation album,
‘Bella Tuscany’ that Telarc released
last year. As
such, of course, these tracks are reissues.
At mid-price one would expect much better
documentation than this meagre six-pager
that cheekily uses four of its pages
to promote the eight Telarc albums from
which these excerpts are derived and
the ‘Bella Tuscany’ compilation. When
will the record companies begin to realise
that they have the opportunity to create
loyalty and repeated purchases from
newcomers to classical music who presumably
are the target audience for albums such
as this? Surely the provision of some
facts about the background of the music
and composers would be of more value
to this market. In these days when classical
music seems to be an endangered species
surely this is an argument that should
not be ignored?
Gripe over. To the
excerpts. The first thing to emphasise
is the excellent sound quality. Telarc
are renowned for their sound engineering.
I was impressed by: Yolanda Kondonassis’s
beautifully limpid reading of Debussy’s
Arabesque, the golden-voiced Ely Ameling’s
gorgeously shaped ‘Villanelle’ from
Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’Eté;
the heart-felt poignancy of Ravel’s
Pavane pour une infante défunte
in Paavo Järvi’s reading, the glowing
intensity of the Cleveland Quartet’s
realisation of the Allegro Moderato
movement from Ravel’s String Quartet
in F and an exquisite ‘Sanctus’ (Fauré
Requiem) from Robert Shaw’s forces
But Slatkin is rather too deliberate
in Satie’s Gymnopédies
for my taste and some Fauré enthusiasts
might find Shaw’s Pelléas
interpretations a tad too shadowy and
melancholy.
It is left to the music
of Francis Poulenc to provide the most
adventurous selections. This is a
capella singing of a high order
even if this is not very inspired, rather
imitative Poulenc. Poulenc’s biographer,
Benjamin Ivry, has commented that the
composer wrote this work in 1948 from
a sense of duty – the idea having been
suggested by Poulenc’s great-nephew
Roger who was a monk at Champfleury.
Generally, sterling
performances in very good sound of well-known
French classics.
Ian Lace
Leonard Slatkin/Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
