Ravel: Boléro - Debussy: La Mer & Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune

Herbert von Karajan clearly had a deep attachment to Debussy’s orchestral triptych, La mer, taking it into the studio four times. This, his third recording, was made in the mid-1970s in state-of-the-art analogue sound—the silvery hiss of the brushed cymbal in the opening “De l’aube à midi sur la mer,” and the excellently played woodwind solos are all caught in astonishingly vivid detail. If Karajan starts that movement a touch more steadily than in his previous and much admired 1964 recording, this actually increases the sense of the sea’s innate power, unleashed magnificently in the following two sea portraits. The sultry Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune here truly offers the best of both worlds, as principal flautist Karlheinz Zöller once again casts a beguiling spell at its opening as he did in 1964. His colleagues, captured in superb detail, respond with playing even more refined than in that earlier recording. In contrast to this languid vision, Ravel’s Boléro is crisp and steady in its controlled yet relentless crescendo, with particularly characterful solos from each of the two saxophonists. Finally, as a festive encore, a lively 1980 performance of Chabrier’s España is included for good measure.