Bizet

Jeux d'enfants Petite Suite - L'Arlésienne - La Jolie Fille de Perth

Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra/Enrique Bátiz

ASV CDDCA620 (60 minutes : DDD)

Reviewed: Gramophone (11/1989)

Had this been a medium-price disc it might, figuratively, have been given a kindly pat on the head and left to make its unpretentious way in the world, but unfortunately it isn't, and so needs to hold its own against some of the big boys—with Dutoit (Decca) and Beecham (EMI) among the eight CD versions of L'Arlesienne and Haitink (Philips) and Dutoit (also Decca) among the three Jeux d'enfants. Comparison with these shows a range of nuance and a care over detail far beyond what is found here; and some of Batiz's tempos are so eccentric as to be unacceptable. Jeux d'enfants perhaps comes off best of the present works, except for a ""La toupie"" so fast that the strings are unhappy in the relay-handover rising scale and for some slightly less than exact trumpet intonation in ""Trompette et tambour"", and the Jolie fille de Perth suite also has its points, though the chords punctuating the fairytale woodwind in the ""Prelude"" might have been less violent and the cellos less glaringly highlighted in their melody, and the loudest passages in the ""Marche"" are coarse in sound.
But this L'Arlesienne makes it clear that Mexico is a very long way from Provence, and in the journey much of the special aroma of that area, caught so poetically by Bizet, has blown away. The broad, relaxed atmosphere of the ""Pastorale"" is marred at the start by the harsh brass chords, it is really astonishing that the charming flute-and harp ""Minuetto"" should be played not merely much too fast but so cold-bloodedly, totally without affection or tonal gradations (the woodwind are equally inexpressive in the middle section of the ""Carillon"")- the cellos—in contrast to their mike-hogging presence mentioned earlier—lack warmth in their variation (which starts unclearly) of the ""Overture"". The lovely Adagietto, one of Bizet's tenderest inspirations, is played so impossibly, so ludicrously slowly (Batiz takes 5'40"" over it as compared to Dutoit's 3'07"") that it simply disintegrates, on the other hand the ""Farandole"", too fast even to begin with, is given a vulgar specious excitement by being whipped into a barnstorming orgy quite alien to the spirit of Daudet's play.