Celibidache Conducts Ravel (Live)

Sergiu Celibidache could be eccentric, wilful and, when in top form, magnificent—as he is here, offering a trio of popular Ravel orchestral works. Daphnis et Chloé is a ballet he always did well, his ear for orchestral colour and texture animating this most luscious of music and making it sound totally ravishing. Le Tombeau de Couperin, written as a memorial to friends lost in war, is a more complex creation and Celibidache doesn’t sell it short. La valse, that intoxicating vision of a world in decay, swirls thrillingly to its conclusion. Terrific playing by the Munich orchestra, recorded live during the 1980s.