Cool! Thanks! You’ve saved me a lot of digging and listening.
They look so young!
Nice. I’ve got a couple of recordings of the Kreutzer, one with Perlman and Ashkenazy, and one (my favorite) a live performance with Perlman and Argerich.
These are the recordings I hauled around on LP when I was auditioning my first good system back in 1978.
Don’t ask me why this record is in my collection. I probably bought it solely on a recommendation in TAS, because it’s most definitely not the kind of music I sought out as a young adult. It’s Ravel’s “L’Enfant et les Sortilèges,” which roughly translates to “The Child and the Spells.” It’s subtitled a “lyric fantasy in two parts, based on the poems of Colette.”
It’s a stunning recording, but the music definitely takes some getting used to. Imagine a cross between Schubert lieder and Kurt Weill art songs, with a touch of Sondheim, all heard through Ravel’s impressionist lens. Different, to be sure. I don’t recall ever having played it, so I’m thinking I must have shelved it upon purchase, thinking I’d get to it, only to forget it existed.
It’s from 1961, on DGG (138 675), performed by the Orchestre National, Paris, conducted by a young-looking Loren Maazel, and featuring a variety of vocalists.
