Search - Tchaikovsky, Ansermet, Orch De La Suisse Romande :: Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty

Magical Performance

Tone-Deaf Music Lover | Charlotte, NC, USA | 01/11/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"More than 20 years ago, one-by-one, I found and purchased Tchaikovsky's 3 great ballet music LP record sets, performed by Ernest Ansermet and Swisse Romande Orchestra. I have treasured these 3 sets, but over the years and many movings, LP's and record players were degraded. I replaced Swan Lake and Nutcracker with respective CD's, but, although I have tried to find and obtain Sleeping Beauty CD set, it was just before Christmas of 2009 when I finally found one! I am 65 years old, but now recovering all 3 reasures, I can almost jump up and down like a little kid. Ernest Ansermet and Swisse Romande Orchestra play these ballet music with heart. And, especially in Sleeping Beauty where there are some dramatic mood changes such as the palace is all of a sudden frozen, or everything comes alive again when princess is awakened; the music is played really vivid: You are drawn into the Fairy Tale World."

The SLEEPING BEAUTY to own

C. David Claris | Chapel Hill, NC | 12/05/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After 25 years of waiting for Polygram (now Universal) to reissue Ansermet's major ballet studio completes, I can now die and go to ... wherever. Thanks Universal Australia for this and his superb Delibes Coppelia also (DeLibes: Coppelia/Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe). Both interpretations are ne plus ultra in wonderful vintage Decca stereo from Geneva's Victoria Hall, lovingly played and brilliantly engineered. If you love ballet, you'll love this recording."

Traces of magic only

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 04/21/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Ernest Ansermet was Decca's star French conductor (although Swiss by birrth), and as such he was assigned the entire Franco-Russian musical axis. Many older collectors have cherished memories of those old LPs, which often had open, airy sound that added to the magic. Ansermet knew Sleeping Beauty from the theater and conducts each number with nimble facility. In our era of genuine Russian conductors, his mercurial way remains appealing. But in the original 1959 review, the Gramophone was being charitable to call the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande "able," because it was barely second rate. Here we get sour woodwinds, especially in the mistuned oboes that spoil every chord they play a part in. The strings are supple in the French style but thin, the brass scrawny and blatty.



To quote the Gramophone reviewer, "Ansermet uses the American complete score and plays almost all of it. The major omission is the beautiful entr'acte with violin solo, No. 18; several other numbers are seriously abbreviated, and there are some short and practical cuts." Like the other reviewers, I waited a long time for this set to emerge from Decca's archives, but the airy magic of the original LPs is barely in evidence while listening to the rather thin, hard digital version. Too much is flawed for Ansermet to compete with the likes of Valery Gergiev on Philips or the riveting live concert reading of the score under Rozhdestvensky on BBC Legends. Previn gives a tamer account on EMI, but his London Sym. from the Seventies is miles ahead of Ansermet's scrappy band."