Ravel: Miroirs (Lortie, Bavouzet)

Ravel is notoriously hard to interpret. Playing him requires virtuosity, but virtuosity worn so light it’s almost transparent – Ravel isn’t interested in difficultly qua difficulty, after all, only the sheer sound a piano can generate. If you take the difficulty too seriously – if you play with too much temperament, you lose the painstaking perfectionism and jewel-like classicism of Ravel. And if you play with too little personality, everything sounds pallid, washed-out, pale.

The two performances here of Miroirs – one of Ravel’s most important works – are rare and stunning successes. Lortie has a deliciously straightforward and earthy approach, full of verve and sensitivity perfectly on display in his performance of Alborada, with all those liquid glissandi shimmering like mercury, and the crystalline voicing in Une barque at moments such as [13:04]. Note also the uncanny accelerandi he uses in Noctuelles to perfectly imitate the dark, haphazard flitting about of night moths. Bavouzet’s impressionism is markedly different from Lortie’s but just as dazzling: with an infinitesimally fine sound on a 1901(!) Steinway D, he flawlessly recreates the terraced soundscape of Une barque and the touchingly subdued lament of Oiseaux. While Lortie presents a more consistently generous sound, Bavouzet happily stretches dynamic changes to incredible degrees of fineness – see the mystical pianissimo that begins at [37:03], for instance. His approach is less down-to-earth than Lortie’s, more perkily precise, and more consciously dwells of the music’s sense of the fantastic [see 38:08, or contrast the little cadenza at 3:50 + 31:05, or the rising alternate-hand passages at 4:17 + 31:38, or the differences in voicing at 15:45 + 43:36].

Lortie:
00:00 – Noctuelles (Night Moths)
04:31 – Oiseaux tristes (Sad Birds)
08:32 – Une barque sur l'océan (A Boat on the Ocean)
15:17 – Alborada del gracioso (Morning Song of the Jester)
21:55 – La vallée des cloches (The Valley of Bells)

Bavouzet:
27:09 – Noctuelles (Night Moths)
31:50 – Oiseaux tristes (Sad Birds)
35:45 – Une barque sur l'océan (A Boat on the Ocean)
43:07 – Alborada del gracioso (Morning Song of the Jester)
49:44 – La vallée des cloches (The Valley of Bells)