A milestone of music making, this 4 CD boxed set collects Maurice Ravel’s lush orchestral oeuvre in a collection of defining performances conducted by Pierre Boulez. A vivid testament to the ineffable incalculable role a conductor fills in any interpretation, ‘Pierre Boulez Conducts Ravel’ includes many of Ravel’s best known compositions along with the valuable addition of less recorded and long out of print gems such as Jessye Norman’s luminous Chansons Madécasses with members of Ensemble InterContemporaín and the Piano Concerto in D major for the Left Hand, played thrillingly here by Phillipe Entremont with an inspired lights out Cleveland Orchestra. Boulez’s prowess with the music of Ravel takes many forms, robust, muscular, capable of great tenderness, inquisitive, insouciant, and this collection of almost 5 hours of music allows one to immerse completely within the rich motherlode of genius that was Maurice Ravel. Includes informative 28-page booklet.

It’s simple: [Järvi] takes the lunacy [in the Ibert] to an inspired new level, from the very first ear-splitting trombone raspberry. The Tapiola Sinfonietta…plays with guts, virtuosity, and madcap inspiration.

The present installment of Arturo Sacchetti’s encyclopedic Organ History survey for Arts Music drops anchor in late-19th/early-20th-century France. It can be argued that the five instrumental sections from Satie’s Mass for the Poor that open this recital lose poignancy when shorn of their surrounding vocal movements, although the organ is a perfect instrument for the composer’s quirky, instantly identifiable harmonic language. By contrast, D’Indy’s Les Vêpres du Commun des Saints, Roussel’s Prélude et Fughetta, and Honegger’s Deux Pièces pour Orgue make an arid, academic impression. After Wayne Marshall’s pulverizing speed through the Pastorale by Roger-Ducasse (Virgin Classics), Sacchetti’s relatively conservative virtuosity proves less engaging. However, his incisive hand/foot coordination enliven Tournemire’s Improvisation on “Te Deum” and Langlais’ Hymne d’Actions de grâces “Te Deum”, although the latter yields to Andrew Herrick’s more vivid and better engineered traversal on Hyperion. Organists looking for an effective, unhackneyed encore should consider Ibert’s Musette or Milhaud’s Pastorale.

The French composer Albert Roussel (1869-1937) was ideally placed to develop a unique musical style. His background was more colourful than most of his fellow composers (he initially studied mathematics and worked as a naval officer before devoting himself to music), while his early years as a composer saw him exposed to a barrage of rich but conflicting musical influences: the impressionist movement (spearheaded by Debussy) and the more traditional approach of the Schola Cantorum (championed by d'Indy and Franck). Roussel absorbed the wide-ranging styles that he heard around him, blending and modifying them to establish his own distinctive voice – a voice that can be perceived clearly in his music for solo piano. Traditional musical forms are a frequent point of inspiration: in the Suite in F sharp Op.14, Roussel uses rustic dances as a basis to explore both counterpoint and tonal disintegration, while the Bach-inspired Prélude et Fugue demonstrates the neo-Classical style that he was drawn to in his later period. Above all, Roussel's piano music is characterised by its unique synthesis of rationality and feeling.