Search - Maurice Ravel, Jeremy Siepmann :: An Introduction to Ravel's "Boléro" and "Ma mère l'oye"

The best of its kind--and at budget price!

F. Behrens | Keene, NH USA | 08/24/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Naxos has done it again! After beginning several new series--the lives of famous composers, introductions to operas, Shakespeare plays--they are now offering one called "Classics Explained." In the first three entries, one long or two shorter works are analyzed, practically bar by bar, on two CDs by writer and narrator Jeremy Siepmann; and from what I have heard, this is going to be the most perfect effort along these lines yet--and with a budget price, something not to be passed up. Each CD set is accompanied by a thick booklet that is divided into 15 sections: The Composer and the Work, A Biographical Sketch, Place and Importance, The Work's Reception, an Essay, the Track List, an extremely detailed analysis (all the words of which are given in the text), Challenges to the Interpreter, Structural Overview, Ways of Listening, What Music Is, What Music Isn't, Guide to the Composer's Tools, The Basic Forms of Music, and a Glossary. Obviously, some of these chapters will be the same from set to set, others specific to the work at hand. The only extra step this can go--and I have suggested this to Naxos--is to make videos of the orchestra actually playing the selections. Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" (8.558028-29) spends a good deal of time on the Spring section to show how truly complex this simple-sounding movement is, and then gives a slightly quicker overview of Winter, Fall and Summer. In Brahms' "Piano Concerto No. 2" (8.558030-31), the first CD is devoted to the first 2 movements, the second to the last 2. Finally in the Ravel set, the first CD analyzes "Bolero" and the second "Ma Mere l'Oye." In all cases, each analysis is followed by an uninterrupted playing of the entire movement or section. The music is, of course, drawn from Naxos' endless line of its own recordings. And, do not fear, the explanations are quite non-technical for the most part, and the glossary will help when the inevitable technical term (always explained by the narrator) is used. Grab them all."