Hector Berlioz:
Le Carnaval Romain

Frédéric Chopin:
Les Sylphides

Maurice Ravel:
La Valse

Gabriel Fauré:
Pavane

César Franck:
Le Chasseur Maudit

Maurice Ravel was interested not only in the Spanish bolero but also in the Viennese waltz. In March 1920 he completed the score of the work he consistently called La Valse, about which he later said in an interview "It is a dancing, spinning, almost hallucinating ecstasy, an increasingly passionate and exhausting whirl of dancers carried away in exuberance."

But there are also some grotesque distortions. They remind us that, in addition to the sonic glorification of the Belle Époque, this composition also represents dancing on a volcano that had already fizzled out by then.

---

Recording: 08–11.02.2022, Deutsche Bläserakademie, Steingrundweg 1, 04651 Bad Lausick.