Daphnis and Chloe


You haven’t really heard this work if you haven’t listened to a recording of it from the very dawn of stereo: Antal Dorati, 1954, Mercury.  In most performances of this Ravel masterpiece we get a beautiful wash of sound which is quite intoxicating.  Dorati (and Mercury) reveals the inner workings which are revelatory. Not just beautiful sound but what’s really going on.  The composition becomes even better than it seems. 
Can be heard on Qobuz.

rvpiano

Yes, it IS in mono, but it sounds every bit as good as stereo.
I definitely found it on Qobuz.  It might be worth trying again for the SQ.

It is the whole ballet.

Dorati took over the Detroit Symphony when I was in medical school there, around 1980.  I must have seen him conduct 20 concerts.  I lived by the hall and student tickets were dirt cheap.  I don’t remember him conducting any French Music at all.After years of record collecting it’s clear that he did his best work for Mercury in the fifties and sixties.

  I listened to this on Apple, which means I had to use AirPlay.  I still can’t find it on Qobuz although I believe you that it’s available.  TBH sonically I don’t think it compares well with Monteux and the LSO or Munch and Boston, both of which were recorded a few years later but in stereo.  It does compare well with Toscanini/NBC, which is the only mono account that I had previously heard 

Thanks for the suggestion about finding it on Qobuz, but when I tried it again the recording didn’t materialize.  Weird