In 2011 LSO Live released Ravel Daphnis et Chloé, Pavane pour une infante défunte & Boléro on 1 SACD. Available now internationally LSO Live present this release with the addition of a DVD, including video concert footage of Valery Gergiev conducting Boléro.
Ravel was commissioned by Serge Diaghilev in 1909 to write the music for Daphnis et Chloé. Although he subsequently prepared orchestral suites of the score, the complete work is a magnificent orchestral showpiece in its own right. Ravel described it as a symphonie choréographique although it is essentially an extended tone poem. Luscious orchestral colours run throughout the work, portraying the passion of the two protagonists for each other. By contrast, Pavane pour une infante défunte, composed whilst Ravel was still a student of Gabriel Fauré, harks back to the simplicity of the eighteenth-century music of Rameau.
