Daphnis et Chloe

Mysterious nocturnal atmosphere, pirate fights and a breathtaking sunrise: With the ballet "Daphnis et Chloë", Maurice Ravel created what is probably his most dizzying score - and that's saying something when you look at the magic of tone colors that the French composer also displayed in all his other orchestral works. On their latest album for Warner, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and its musical director Aziz Shokhakimov bring the masterpiece to life in all its splendor - with a fantastic result. "Daphnis et Chloë", the "Symphonie choréographique" premiered by Sergei Diagilevs Ballets Russes in Paris in 1912, is nowadays mainly known because of the two suites that Ravel compiled from individual movements for the concert hall. This makes it all the more spectacular to relive the approximately one-hour piece in its entirety in the context of Ravel's 150th birthday. In its review of the concert performance in Strasbourg in 2024, on which the new recording is based, the French online specialist magazine "Résonances Lyriques" praised the "opalescent timbres" produced by strings that are "homogeneous and legato" in the high register, in the low register "with their noble fullness", "weightless woodwinds", brass with an "embracing sound" and, last but not least, a "multicolored" percussion section and harps that sound "intense and aristocratic". An instrumental sound mosaic that condenses into a sparkling orchestral frenzy and is atmospherically complemented, not least by the singing of the Choeur Philharmonique de Strasbourg.