你好When you think about the sheer amount of great music Sergei Diaghilev is responsible for introducing to the world, it is staggering. In addition to Stravinsky’s scores, which made him into a star overnight, there’s Ravel’s greatest and longest masterpiece, Daphnis et Chloé, ballet music or as Ravel preferred to call it, a "symphonie choréographique".

The scenario for the ballet, prepared by Fokine and then revised by Ravel, was adapted from a pastoral tale ascribed to an early Greek poet named Longus: Daphnis and Chloe, both abandoned in infancy on the island of Lesbos, have been brought up by benevolent shepherd folk. They fall in love, and Daphnis teaches Chloe to play the pipes he fashions from reeds. Chloe is abducted by priates, but is rescued by the great god Pan, and reunited with Daphnis amid general rejoicing

Ravel began work on the score in 1909 . Work on it was interrupted so many times because of stormy fights between Fokine and the composer, that Diaghilev began to have doubts about the whole deal. In the end it was premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris by the Ballets Russes on June 8, 1912. The orchestra was conducted by Pierre Monteux, the choreography was by Michel Fokine, and Vaslav Nijinsky danced the part of Daphnis.

The music, some of the composer's most passionate, seems to surge and flow effortlessly, disguising the fact that Ravel labored long and hard over the score – in fact, it took him a year to complete the bacchanale, the last section.. Nevertheless, the music is widely regarded as some of the best Ravel ever produced.with extraordinarily lush and passionate harmonies typical of the impressionist movement in music.

The complete work is itself performed more often in concerts than it is staged. It is written for a large orchestra consisting of piccolo, 2 flutes, alto flute, 2 oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, tam-tam, wind machine, triangle, bass drum, field drum, castanets, tambourine, celesta, glockenspiel, 2 harps, wordless choir and strings.

What’s in our player now: Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe, London Symphony Orchestra, Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Pierre Monteux, Cond. - Decca Legends D425 956-2DM

There is no such thing as a definitive recording, but if there were, this comes closest to it. After all, Monteux worked with Ravel himself for the 1912 premiere and has been closely connected with this music ever since. Even though Monteux was over 80 when he made this recording, he still brings to it an amazing finesse and sensitivity to the music’s many moods and nuances – qualities that could only be French. As advanced as his years were, his mastery misses nothing. He even gets the London Symphony to sway and surpass itself in a very “unBritish” way. That a man of his age could create a Bacchic state as frenzied as this performance, has to be heard to be believed.