Ondine’s initial Robert Trevino recording, a Beethoven symphony cycle with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, was released in June 2020. It was an audacious choice for the orchestra and its new music director but met with mostly favorable reviews. This latest Ravel release, again entering a crowded and competitive field, features Trevino leading the other orchestra of which he is music director, the Basque National Orchestra.
The Ondine recording, engineered by Fabian Frank, is fantastic. The sound, warm and resonant, clear and transparent, allows us to hear every detail of Ravel’s ravishing orchestration. Those seeking the voluptuous richness of Boulez in Berlin (DG) or Karajan in Paris (Warner Classics) may find the Basque sound too lean, but the detail and finesse of their playing is ample compensation.
La Valse clearly shows a symbiotic connection between conductor and orchestra, similar to the 1980s recordings (Stravinsky, Berlioz, and Ravel) by Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. While both Karajan and Boulez establish a darker sense of foreboding in the opening strings murmurings, Trevino’s reading soon develops a true sense of dance. String playing is eloquent, beautifully shaped, and especially ravishing at 2’01”. Trevino guides his players towards the music’s cataclysmic ending with a sure hand, pushing the tempo ever faster. While it is very exciting and destructive, the formidable menace of Karajan’s weigher orchestral sound might evoke Ravel’s machinelike brutality even more fully.
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Alborada del gracioso and (most of) Rhapsodie espagnole are completely successful, colors rendered with astonishing clarity, as if we are peering over the shoulder of the painter as he puts brush to canvas. Wind solos are consistently alluring, individually shaped, and fully characterful.
The Rhapsodies’ final movement, Feria (track 6), begins with crackling energy, but at 2’15” Trevino yanks the tempo back, and the substantially slower tempo results in a significant sag in energy and muddling any sense of the overall structure. The return of the opening tempo at 4’48” is jarring, and the performances never quite recoups the initial levels of energy and excitement. John Wilson and his magnificent Sinfonia of London is far more convincing in this music, and the playing is perhaps even better than their Basque colleagues.
Ravel’s Une barque sur l’océan is vividly evocative, the play of the ocean’s waves palpable. Boulez in Cleveland is more clinical, but is one sweeping symphonic thought, whereas Trevino’s is more episodic. Both interpretations work. Trevino’s Pavane feels a bit superficial (and slow) next to more forlorn readings of Boulez (Cleveland again), Dutoit/Montreal and Abbado/London Symphony Orchestra, which has a touching chamber music-like intimacy.
The considerable gifts of this orchestra are one full display in Bolero. Woodwind solos, shaped with subtle individuality, are once again uniformly excellent, but Trevino seems reticent to permit his brass any hint of vulgarity, and the arrival of the E major section lacks the power heard in the Philadelphia Orchestra recording led by Riccardo Muti. The Philadelphians were very much in the honeymoon stage with their new conductor, and their playing has tremendous ardor and power, though the EMI recording admittedly a bit brash and glassy. Interestingly, Muti is one of few conductors to follow Ravel’s note that Bolero should last 17 minutes in performance: Muti takes 17’03”.
The liner notes by Ravel scholar Manuel Cornejo are exceptionally informative and lengthy – Ondine are to be commended for offering ancillary materials that equal the excellence of the music making. I look forward to hearing other recordings from this partnership.
Ravel – Orchestral Works:
La Valse, Alborada Del Gracioso, Rapsodie espagnole, Une barque sur l’océan, Pavane pour une infante défunte, Bolero
Basque National Orchestra
Robert Trevino – Conductor
Ondine, CD ODE 1385-2
Ravel Orchestral Music – Recommended Recordings
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