Old Ravel-Debussy Pairing Gains a Handsome Addition

We have come to appreciate the considerable difference between the music and mentality of Ravel and his early mentor and friend, Debussy. Yet, the composers remained bracketed in people’s minds long after the comparison had outlived its meaningfulness.

In the beginning, however, the bracketing was apt, above all with respect to their string quartets--each composer’s only effort in the medium and for each the first acknowledged entry in a small, highly refined series of chamber works.

Debussy’s Quartet is dated 1893; Ravel’s a decade later. That they would be paired on recordings was inevitable, although it might be time to rethink the procedure: not necessarily to separate the twins but to enlarge a program whose playing time barely exceeds 50 minutes.

Which, happily, is what a classy little Dutch label named Channel Classics (3892) has done.

Not only has it added a substantial, little-known 20th-Century work that complements these classics handsomely; it has presented it alongside a Debussy-Ravel coupling as good as any currently available.

The “new” work is Henri Dutilleux’s “Ainsi la nuit . . . “ (1977), a collection of airy quartet fragments, subtly evocative of night-moods: rather like a meeting of Debussy and his great admirer, Bartok.

All three are performed by the Utrecht-based Orpheus String Quartet, possessors of an ultra-rich, slightly gruff sonority, a thrillingly wide dynamic range and all the rhythmic intensity one could desire.

By contrast, France’s Ysaye Quartet (London 430 434), namesake of the ensemble that gave the first performance of Debussy’s Quartet a century ago, presents only the two standards, and in what might be called a traditionally Gallic manner--i.e., emphasizing delicacy of phrasing, light bow pressure and discreet application of portamento. And while the Ysayeinterpretations show no lack of dynamic variety, the dynamic scale employed is a narrower one than the Orpheus’.

These Frenchmen hew to an overall approach resembling that of the International String Quartet (a Franco-British outfit), which in 1927 made the first recording ever of Ravel’s Quartet, under the composer’s supervision.

This and four additional items involving the composer’s participation or imprimatur and dating from between 1923 and 1931 are part of a valuable collection (Music & Arts 703) assembled by William Malloch and remastered by Malloch to a remarkably high degree of listenability.

The International String Quartet was, from the evidence presented here, no great shakes technically. But its lightness of attack and air of letting the music move at its own pace is in keeping with what would seem to be Ravel’s restrained, no-sweat attitude toward his creations.

In addition to the Quartet, the Music & Arts program has “Bolero” in the famous composer-conducted performance with the Lamoureux Orchestra (1930), rock-steady in its unwaveringly slow tempo but with the wildest, smarmiest solo trombone glissandi this side of Bourbon Street. Flushing out the program are a fiery “La Valse” and a slow-but-mobile “Pavane pur une Infante defunte” under the respective batons of Gabriel Pierne and Albert Wolff, two of Ravel’s designated interpreters, and a composer-directed, delicately airborne “Introduction and Allegro.”

While Ravel successfully transcribed for orchestra some of his solo piano works, he made no such attempt with the A-minor Piano Trio, a score that has survived handsomely in its original dress since 1915.

Now conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier has had a go at it, substituting for Ravel’s subtle economy of means much gratutious brassiness and some particularly silly xylophonerisms.

The program (Chandos 9114), played by the Ulster Orchestra, also includes the 57th CD version of Debussy’s “La Mer” and his early, infrequently recorded “Printemps.”