Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

Let me jump in with friends here:

After years and years of listening to Ravel and Debussy, there has been no practitioner I've experienced who really knows about them like Paul Paray did.

The utter precision, the elegance, polish, finish and spontaneity all bow below a nearly divine interpretative insight so breathtaking that it becomes part of the listener's own, dearly-held artistic values. I think my colleagues here have experienced the same thing from Paray, and indeed, this disk is as fine an example of his art as any he did.

It's... more info

I love this CD!:

Other versions of the second Daphnis et Chloe suite sound stale and mushy when compared with this one. Paray's texture is lean and precise, enhancing the structure and details of the music rather than the usual impressionistic wash of sound. I don't mean that it's not evocative; in fact, listening to Daybreak is stunningly like watching a summer sunrise. You can hear the birds and feel the first breezes stirring. I program it to wake me up every morning - truly a great start to the day.

Ravel and Debussy interpretation at best...:

The collector who owned Paray's other recordings of French impressionists, they should buy this one. Just try the opening of daphnis and chloe suite; and see how a Ravel performance should sounds; superb controlling of woodwinds that caches score's pulse and heart but without losing atmosphere and magic, and I should confess I did not hear any similar precision from ANY modern performance... Another revelation comes from Debbussy Noctures, women's choir really sounds like sea waves, like painting a sea... more info

Tracks:

1. Daphnis et Chloe, Suite No. 2: Lever du joir
2. Daphnis et Chloe, Suite No. 2: Pantomime
3. Daphnis et Chloe, Suite No. 2: Danse generale
4. Valses nobles et sentimentales: Modere
5. Valses nobles et sentimentales: Assez lent
6. Valses nobles et sentimentales: Modere
7. Valses nobles et sentimentales: Assez anime
8. Valses nobles et sentimentales: Presque lent
9. Valses nobles et sentimentales: Assez vif
10. Valses nobles et sentimentales: Moins vif
11. Valses nobles et sentimentales: Epilogue: lent
12. Bolero
13. Nocturnes For Orchestra: Nuages (Clouds)
14. Nocturnes For Orchestra: Fetes (Festivals)
15. Nocturnes For Orchestra: Sirenes (Sirens)
16. Petite Suite: En Bateau