With this recital Gordon Fergus-Thompson completes his Ravel cycle and confirms his calibre and status as a distinguished, most individual Francophile. Once again received wisdom, or the almost manic rigidity that passes in some circles for an authentic Gallic style is daringly replaced by the most freely expressive playing. Time and again the listener is enveloped in a sensuous, richly nuanced and coloured world that is the polar opposite of a classic French clarity of line and argument. Indeed, Fergus-Thompson's rubato at the start of the Sonatine's ''Menuet'' or his insinuating way with, say, A la maniere de Borodine will make some listeners feel positively light-headed, and others think of an essentially Chopinesque bias. Yet such lavish affection is hard to resist and in ''Une barque sur l'ocean'' (Miroirs) he evokes Ravel's marinescape (his own miniature La mer) with a vivid and haunting sense of indolence and hyperactivity; the very essence of Mediterranean poetry.
The flashing repeated notes and double-note glissandos of Miroirs's ''Alborada'' have been more fluently negotiated (and never more so than by the incomparable Lipatti from 1948) yet even here Fergus-Thompson is right at the heart of Ravel's beloved Hispanicism, and in the remoter reaches of ''Oiseaux tristes'' and ''La vallee des cloches'' his playing has a symbolic calm far removed from merely local colour or appeal. You will need to hear opposing views of Miroirs from Minoru Nojima (Reference) and Toradze (EMI, 11/87—nla), and a less idiosyncratic but no less beguiling performance from Thibaudet (in his two-disc Decca set). But for a true and haunting sense of romance beneath Ravel's inscrutable surface, Gordon Fergus-Thompson is your man. Even the most experienced Ravelians will find themselves returning to these finely recorded accounts for a special and magical enlightenment.'