I’ve long thought that, should there be a full-sized symphony orchestra to hand, I’d happily die to the closing section of Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite – so long as it was done with the enfolding tenderness the score requires, and very, very slowly.
Simon Rattle’s reading of this music at the Proms was on the fast side for my taste but qualified in every other way: I’ve rarely heard what we must now refer to as his orchestra, the London Symphony, play so beautifully – you had to hold your breath for fear of damaging the spell. And if you love Ravel, you’d have been holding your breath throughout the whole of this exquisite Prom, which was entirely given over to the composer’s works inspired by fairy tales and played at dynamic levels that rarely rose above mezzo-forte.
