Ravel: Valse nobles et sentimentales, Menuet antique, Frontispiece, Shéhérazade Overture, Ma mère l’Oye (Complete Ballet)
Robert Trevino / Basque National Orchestra (Ondine)
(scroll down for English review)
崔維洛和巴斯克國立管弦樂團的第二張拉威爾專輯，曲目看來比第一張弱頗多，但細看之下，正好有三分二是我不夠熟悉的。小冊子作者想引導聽者，從拉威爾母親是巴斯克人這方向去聽這張專輯。例如開碟的《高貴與傷感圓舞曲》（軌一至八）就令人很有西班牙感覺。
等等，嚴格來說，巴斯克又不是西班牙啊，巴斯克式音樂和西班牙式音樂有甚麼分別呢？那麼《波萊羅》是西班牙還是巴斯克？《西班牙狂想曲》又是不是應該叫巴斯克狂想曲呢？想起有位同文，向來堅持拉威爾是巴斯克作曲家，打死都不願叫他做法國作曲家。
我倒是覺得本碟的曲目通常都是飄逸的、像童話世界一般的，和大家最常聽的爆棚式很不同，這也是我去聽這碟一個原因。軌九《古風小步舞曲》較常以鋼琴版聽到，這裏我就覺得有點重覆。軌十《卷首畫》原本是寫給雙鋼琴，布烈茲在1987年配器成管弦曲，把原曲的節奏迷宮擴大到像前衛音樂。軌11《雪希拉莎德序曲》跟拉威爾類似曲名的聲樂曲是不同的作品，童話或魔幻的意味比林姆斯基高沙可夫《天方夜譚》較強，不過就太沒完沒了。
最大收獲還是碟尾的《鵝媽媽》全曲（軌12至23），這不是大家聽慣的組曲版。就跟史特拉汶斯基《火鳥》相似，組曲版將重點旋律抽出來，令人不用聽過場，然而拉威爾的前奏曲及間奏曲，營造出的音響世界我覺得也很有趣，而且不算長氣，所以還是值得聽全曲。至於這碟的演奏，我認為樂隊質素不足以脫穎而出，但崔維洛也盡人事控制好木管的力度至柔和而綿延，《鵝媽媽》稍為拖慢去突出飄逸感覺，我在認識拉威爾其他作品的目的下，還是滿意這張唱片的。
Robert Trevino and Basque National Orchestra’s follow up on their Ravel series with lesser known works. The booklet writer wants us to listen to this album with Ravel’s Basque ancestry (his mother’s side) in mind. But personally I can’t really tell Basque music from Spanish music, to me, the main attraction of this CD is the mild and fairytale-like music.
I think I was influenced by the writer in sensing a heightened Spanish flavour in the Valses nobles et sentimentales (tracks 1-8). It’s good to hear the Menuet antique (track 9) in this orchestral form but it sounds too repetitive. It’s my first time hearing Frontispiece (track 10), an unpublished Ravel work which was subsequently orchestrated by Boulez into an avant-garde sounding orchestral study. Shéhérazade Overture (track 11) is more fairytale, or more Disney than Rimsky-Korsakov’s piece but unfortunately it’s just too long.
The main attraction is the complete Mother Goose (tracks 12-23). The Suite gets all the best tunes and quite understandably gets played a lot. But the prelude and interludes left out from the suite are quite charming and coagulate the set pieces into a coherant whole. As for the playing, frankly I don’t think this Basque orchestra has the expertise to match the best European or American orchestras. Still, Robert Trevino tried hard enough to discipline the woodwinds into a mellow and sustained tone. The Mother Goose ballet was played a tad slower to emphasize its airiness. All in all, this album wasn’t a waste of time if you wish to know more about Ravel.