Classical Music: Maurice Ravel In Search Of Lost Dance

Are we about to see the demise of the CD?

I ask because I am old enough to remember when stereo recording overtook mono. The quality of those last mono recordings was outstanding and questions were asked about whether we needed this fancy stereo innovation. The CD seems, to me, to be in a similar position as the mono recording – outstanding for sound quality, but about to disappear. The Linos Trio’s offering is in a similar position: excellent sound quality, but in a medium rapidly going out of style.

This crossroad is not just about ways of accessing music. LP album covers were a delight, often works of art. The CD cover has not achieved that status, but mercifully some still have sleeve notes.

The commentary on Linos’s exposition of Ravel is informative and enlightening. For example, pianist Prach Boondiskulchok, plays an Erard Concert Grand of 1882, the same make of instrument that Ravel had at home. The construction and stringing of this piano is very different from the pianos we hear in concert halls today. Similarly, the violin and cello both use gut strings, either plain or wound. Such information is more than useful to the listener.

The title, In Search of Lost Dance, is not just an intriguing piece of marketing. Most of the movements use names of forgotten dances such as Rigaudon or Pantoum. Hardly any have more conventional designations such as Modéré.

The opening track is in A Minor, setting the tone for the whole. It is reflective and calm, but sound builds to a more urgent, almost frenetic, pace. Perhaps the date of composition, coinciding the onset of WWI, might have something to do with this urgency. In the Passacaglia, the dark notes on the piano are overlaid by the violin (Konrad Elias-Trostmann) and it is at moments like this that we hear the value of using period instruments: the interplay is lighter and more tranquil.

If you ever going to get that shiver down the spine for a piece of music, then surely the Pavane pour une enfant défunt is the one that will deliver it.

The Pavane is, of course, a slow and stately dance. Orchestrally introduced by brass and woodwind, here there is a beautifully simple opening on the violin. It relies on repetition – as does Ravel’s Bolero – but it is through melody and atmosphere that the Pavane exerts its greatest effect.

The final tracks are devoted to another Ravel favourite: Le Tombeau de Couperin.

There are echoes here of the Pavane, particularly in the Cello (Vladimir Waltham), and with Tombeau in the title we are not expecting light-hearted exuberance.

However, Ravel continues to be playful, delighting us with intimate delicacy. The Forlane (yes, I had to look it up as well, it’s a dance using different tempi) is spirited, as is the Rigaudon but we are back in a meditative frame of mind with Menuet.

I am suspicious of broadcasters who promote classical music as ‘relaxation’ pace (Classic FM). It can be, of course, but its primary function is not to ease the pain of the day. However, if one of the qualities you are looking for, in any kind of music, is conveyance to more beautiful levels of reflection, then the Linos Trio’s CD will provide it.