This most magical of scores has inspired some great recording is competitive. It lacks the absolute refinement of the very best and it does not match in terms of heady atmosphere Munch’s intoxicating account (still the best). Nevertheless, it is very well characterized and individual, generating good, earthly excitement in the right places. The recording is wide-ranging and vivid, if not as sumptuous as the best.

A glance at a large on-line CD catalog will tell you that this newcomer faces tough competition. There are about 30 stereo recordings (give or take half a dozen), ranging from many with big name conductors and world class orchestras to a few with great French conductors leading French orchestras who grew up with this music. Is there a point to this newcomer, cast with unknowns (to me, anyway), other than to assure that Naxos finally has a complete Daphnis in its catalog?

Without question. It has been argued that Ravel's joined-at-the-hip association with Debussy's Impressionism is exaggerated, and that Ravel was a modernist or neoclassicist. Laurent Petitgirard takes the argument a step further by presenting this red-blooded Daphnis et Chloe as an argument that the meticulous French master was a neoromantic. Daphnis has enjoyed most of its fame as a concert work, but this performance reminds us that Ravel's masterwork is a great piece of story­telling. Certainly, few performances of Daphnis make it so easy to picture the choreography, as Petitgirard's baton blows away the customary mist and invites us inside a work we are accustomed to admiring from the meta­physical distance consigned by Impressionism. Tempos are slow, especially before the major choral interlude. Later, speeds pick up­though they're never among the fastest on record-and so does the excitement level. Rhythm and meter are clearer than I've heard before in this piece. Lines are more contoured, solo instruments stand out more, textures are fuller and weightier, and colors are brighter and more defined. The result is a passionate drama occurring in real time and space.

That we are about to hear something different is obvious from the plangent opening horn call, so redolent of the old French whine, followed by a piercing oboe, and a violin section that delineates its rhythmic figures rather than create a mist with them. The first crescendo is huge. Lines and solo parts have more clarity than is customary, and the trumpet fanfare that opens 'Les Jeunes Filles' is broad. Attacks and phrases are more definite in shape than usual, but where Petitgirard really makes us stiffen our shoulders is in 'Daphnis s'approache', which starts out more slowly and deliberately than I've ever heard it. The phrasing here is dramatic and tender, as if placed carefully by an ardent, but shy, admirer, and the little woodwind fanfares are more majestic than I've ever heard them. (Several of the seductive dances are treated this way.) The drums that follow are very audible and almost primitive. The only miscalculation is the too subdued trombone glissandos.

In 'Une Lumiere Irrecelle' the lines are much clearer than usual because of the slow tempo and the careful balances. The chorus in 'Derriere la Scene' sounds so "choral" and deliberate that this section takes on more stature than it usually does. Note the unusual clarity of the sopranos' entrance and of the voicing later on. The next two sections are very powerful, with slow, dramatic, sometimes jagged, phrasing in 'Bryaxis Ordonne' and thrusting downward accents in 'Lever du Jour'. The extended flute episode is slow and grand, and the final moments are slightly slower than usual but at no loss of excitement.

The Bordeaux orchestra sometimes sounds not quite world class, but this is of no real consequence. The wide open, slightly forward recording is terrific-one of the best from Naxos. Keith Anderson's notes are strong both on the history of Daphnis and the breakdown of the story it tells.

Because Petitgirard is blazing new interpretive territory (as far as I know), his recording stands in its own space and demands that lovers of Daphnis at least hear it. Those interested in the more "standard" recordings might start with the two from Munch and the Boston Symphony, particularly the first, with those gorgeous BSO strings and shockingly great 1954 sound. Alongside Munch stands Maazel's underrated supple beauty and the very dramatic Boulez. The fine all-French recordings include the idiomatic Cluytens and Martinon. Three respectable ones with French conductors and non-Gallic orchestras are the neoclassical, lightish Monteux (London Symphony), the dark Tortelier (Ulster) and the beautiful but rather stiff Dutoit (Montreal). Very interesting is the impetuous, eager-to-get-out-of-its-own-way Bernstein. The ones I'd like to know are Haitink, Nagano, Previn, and Gielen. Among those I don't care for are the Ansermet (though favored by many critics, it never comes together for me), Abbado, Schwarz, and Levine's waste of the Vienna Philharmonic.