Any performance you have previously heard of the complete score of Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé will have been rehearsed amid much cursing, thanks to the state of the published sheet music, a scrawl of errors and inconsistencies. Now the conductor John Wilson has produced a new edition – but, while generations of musicians to come will thank him, his amendments, small and often subtle, are not really this recording’s USP. Instead, it’s the quality of the performance by the Sinfonia of London, a supergroup orchestra hand-picked by Wilson for each project.
It opens with a long first crescendo that just keeps on growing, and this burgeoning wall of sound in turn gives way to melodic playing of a Hollywood golden age kind of lushness – it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the Sinfonia of London, in its original mid-century incarnation, before it was resurrected by Wilson five years ago, was a go-to orchestra for film soundtracks. The Sinfonia of London Chorus are outstanding in the many twisty passages for wordless voices, and the sunrise at the start of the third part in flutes is glorious, with sharp, characterful birdsong sounds pealing over some astonishingly clear textural detail. The Bacchanale whirls the work to a close, the playing so tight it seems the whole thing might burst.
Stream it on Apple Music (above) or on Spotify
