Orchestral Music (Incls 'Parade')

"If you'd like to hear a French orchestra playing Satie and having a whale of a time, this will be an excellent starting point. Manuel Rosenthal, one of those conductors who worked well into old age, produces zinging and witty performances here.

Parade has rattles and horns, bell and typewriter, all recorded well to the fore, and the rhythms are so well put over and the tempo adopted doesn't rush the piece unduly. En habit de cheval depicts Gargantua at play dressed as a horse; this and the Trois Pièces were first written for piano and later orchestrated by Satie.

La Mort de Socrate is the third part of Socrate, a symphonic drama in three parts commissioned by the Princesse de Polignac in 1916. First performed privately in 1918 after problems concerning both Satie and the princess had been sorted out, the text makes use of Plato's Phaedo. The singer here, Denise Monteil, has just the sort of voice Satie would have anticipated, and sings simply and so very movingly of the tragedy.

The recordings really do sound freshly minted."
(Five Stars AudAud.com)