Kondrashin: Rapsodie Espagnole, La Valse / Images - Melodiya C 01783-4

Jacket: EX  /  Vinyl: NM  /  Russian pressing

This elusive LP from Melodiya (C 01783-4, Russian pressing, blue/silver label, stereo) features conductor Kirill Kondrashin and the Moscow State Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in a richly evocative and glittering album devoted to Ravel and Debussy.

The exact contents are as follows, all works recorded in Moscow in 1963:

Claude Debussy: Ibéria (“Images” pour orchestra No. 2)

1. Par les rues et par les chemins
2. Les parfums de la nuit
3. Le matin d’un jour de féte

Maurice Ravel: Rapsodie Espagnole

1. Prélude à la nuit
2. Malagueña
3. Habanera
4. Feria

Maurice Ravel: La Valse

These are brilliant, rarified performances, Kondrashin wholly inside the soundworlds these works inhabit, the Russian players bringing poetry and panache to these remarkable scores.

There are insightful liner notes (uncredited) on the reverse side of the jacket, printed in both Russian and English. The lovely cover art is similarly uncredited.