Fabien Gabel's first release on ATMA Classique offers a gala showcase of orchestral music by Maurice Ravel, Francis Poulenc, and Jacques Offenbach, brilliantly performed by the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec. The featured work, Gaîté Parisienne, is an effervescent ballet arranged by Manuel Rosenthal on themes from Offenbach's operettas, and this bright and energetic performance rivals popular recordings by Arthur Fiedler, Erich Kunzel, and even Rosenthal's own rendition, both in buoyant humor and vibrant sound. Even though ...
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Fabien Gabel's first release on ATMA Classique offers a gala showcase of orchestral music by Maurice Ravel, Francis Poulenc, and Jacques Offenbach, brilliantly performed by the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec. The featured work, Gaîté Parisienne, is an effervescent ballet arranged by Manuel Rosenthal on themes from Offenbach's operettas, and this bright and energetic performance rivals popular recordings by Arthur Fiedler, Erich Kunzel, and even Rosenthal's own rendition, both in buoyant humor and vibrant sound. Even though Ravel's orchestral version of Valses nobles et sentimentales and Poulenc's suite from his neoclassical ballet Les Biches are somewhat less sparkling in tone and less infectiously tuneful, they still share some of Gaîté Parisienne's elegance and charm, as well as the French sensibility for refined orchestration which pervades this light program. ATMA Classique's recording is finely detailed and rather close to the musicians, and the dry acoustics of the Salle Louis-Fréchette at the...
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