A straight-through listen (and encores) makes for an agreeable playlist, and the performances are individual and illuminating, each a must-have in a discriminating Ravel collection. Le tombeau de Couperin here matches Ravel’s six-movement piano suite design by using Kenneth Hesketh’s classy orchestrations of the ‘Fugue’ (II) and ‘Toccata’ (VI), which he has scored in a manner worthy of the French master himself; and the account of the whole is crisp, articulate, detailed and meaningful: the end of the ‘Menuet’ (V) is given with maximum poignancy. As is each reading here in terms of feeling, colour, detailing, dynamics and subtlety – superbly recorded by Thore Brinkmann (2020/21) – whether Alborada del gracioso (guitar imitations to the fore, a languorous bassoon solo, and an electrifying coda in which clarity is maintained) or a storm-tossed Une barque sur l’océan (a little boat at the elemental mercy of a choppy sea), both composer-orchestrated from another piano collection, Miroirs. Pavane pour une infante défunte is tender; Menuet antique dances with a nostalgic stance, the middle section delectable and deeply affecting; and La valse … has the vision that so rarely happens, edgy (full of danger signs, even early on) and properly cataclysmic at the end, the Viennese waltz, if hanging on by its ballet shoes, is finally swirled into World War One mayhem. Assaultive timpani/bass drum shots, rampaging brass. Disturbing. BIS-2438 [SACD].

https://bis.se/conductors/oramo-sakari/ravel-la-valse-and-other-works