Nash Ensemble: Ravel Album Review – Captures the music’s dazzling light and dramatic shadows | classical music

THis All-Ravel recording by the Nash Ensemble was Amelia Freedman’s final project of 60 years as artistic director, and a fitting farewell to the group’s much-missed founder, who died in July. It includes all three large chamber works as well as the composer’s own arrangement for piano of his orchestral masterpiece La Valse: Alasdair Beatson and Simon Crawford-Phillips are a polished team in this, sounding great early and then sending out handfuls of notes and long glissandos with seeming ease, all while capturing the music’s increasingly sinister nature.

The 1905 Overture and Allegro was a commission from a harpsichord manufacturer, aiming to make their instrument sound good – which it duly does as played by Lucy Wakeford, although what is most striking is the way the seven instruments combine and separate to create kaleidoscopic compositional interest. Indeed, as emphasized by the sometimes ferocious String Quartet and especially by their lively rendition of the Piano Trio, it is the attention to detail of color and tone that really makes these performances fly, as the instruments combine to capture the dazzling light and interesting shadows that are intrinsic to Ravel’s music.