DAPHNIS ET CHLOE, LA VALSE

Conducted by Philippe Jordan, this recording of Ravel's complete score for Daphnis et Chloé followed performances of the ballet at Opéra Bastille in Paris. The staging evoked the heady days of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes as it brought together Jordan, the choreographer Benjamin Millepied and the designer Daniel Buren. Jordan had never conducted a ballet production before: "When I work on a symphony, it's different," he said, "Here, the sense of phrasing, the physicality that dancers bring, make it something else. "Completing the CD is another work by Ravel that was originally conceived for Diaghilev's Ballets Russe, the intoxicating and haunting La Valse. Famously, Diaghilev rejected the score after it was first played to him in a two-piano reduction; the performers were Ravel himself and the legendary Marcelle Meyer.