Robin Ticciati & DSO - Ravel & Duparc: Aimer et mourir - The Times

More fancy conjurings from a world in transition fill the conductor Robin Ticciati’s Aimer et mourir, devoted to music by Ravel and Henri Duparc, who is known mostly for his solo songs. Four of those songs surface in orchestrated versions, with Magdalena Kožená managing to half-persuade us that she’s good at singing in French. Yet the purely orchestral items with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin work best, showcasing Ticciati’s usual care over textures, especially in Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales. The album’s finale is good too: it’s Duparc’s orchestral morsel Aux étoiles, evanescent but twinkling, where no voice is needed to complete the magic...