Last night I was sitting in my CD room (yes, a whole room, and a large
one at that) staring at my collection (the "R" section specifically) and
realized that my holdings of Ravel's piano music and orchestral works is
rather narrowly focused.

Very early on in my CD purchasing career (about 1986) I purchased the four
London releases of Ravel's orchestral music played by Charles Dutoit and
his Montreal orchestral.  These received much critical praise when they
were released, and I've always found them very engaging and idiomatic.
But having a single conductor's take on these works seems to be a mistake,
so I'm looking for recommendations.  I know the usual suspects for
individual works (Paray, Lopez-Cobos, etc.), and even have some of these
CDs too.  I just recently had the chance to spend a few days with the
new Zimerman/Boulez release on DG of the piano concertos, and found it
predictably dull, dull, dull (Boulez has this effect on me).  But what I'm
really looking at is whether one of the "Duos" or "2-fers" or some other
budget release covers the Ravel orchestral works in classic performances.
For instance, are the Vox Boxes by the Minneapolis Symphony and
Skrowaczewski my best bet, or is there something else I should look for?

I'm in a similar situation with the piano works.  My complete set is by
Vlado Perlmutter on Nimbus, and I truly love his interpretations.  I did
just buy Pascal Roge's complete set on London 2-fer, but I was torn between
this and the Abbey Simon performances on Vox.  It's not opened yet, so
should I trade the Roge for the Simon? Get them both? Get something else?
I'm especially looking for alternative interpretation, at a budget price
(I can't see duplicating excellent recordings I already have with other
full-price CDs unless there's a compelling reason, such as a radically
different approach).

Reveling in Ravel,

Dave
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